Pamphlet  Coliectwan 
Duke  Uaiversity  Ltocaiy 

0ukit 


A.  REPLY 


TO 


Governor  Brown's  Pamphlet  on  Colomhus  Prisoners, 


An  Open  Letter  to  the  People  of  Georgia. — The  Garrard 
Letters. —  Comments  of  the  Press. 


Read  and  Hand  to  Yonr  Neiglibors. 


The  Truth  As  It  Is  ! 


tTxe  jPeople  of  GreoTgict : 

I  have  seen  to-day,  for  the  first  time,  an  anonymous  pamphlet,  circulated 
doubtless,  in  the  interest  of  ex-Governor  Joseph  E.  Brown,  entitled,  ''Gov- 
ernor Brown  and  the  Columbus  Prisoners,"  in  which  my  name  is  very  freely 
handled. 

Had  Governor  Brown  published  my  answers  in  connection  with  his  own 
letters,  I  should  have  had  nothing  more  to  say,  but  inasmuch  as  only  a  one- 
sided and  garbled  view  is  presented  to  you,  in  said  pamphlet,  I  deem  it  my 
duty  to  present  to  you  the  other,  in  order  that  you  may  determine  for  your- 
selves on  which  side  is  the  truth  and  justice. 

I  append  hereto  my  letters  in  reply  to  Governor  Brown  formerly  publish- 
ed in  the  Atlanta  Constitution^  and  also  a  few  of  the  many  editorials  of  news- 
papers of  this  State  on  the  subject  matter  in  controversy.  Governor  Brown, 
figured  in  the  Atlanta  Dispatdi  and  the  Atlanta  Constitution^  as  an  anony- 
mous writer,  and  made  severe  strictures  on  a  legislative  committee,  of  which. 
I  was  a  member,  and  thereby  commenced  on  me,  as  a  member  of  the  com- 
mittee, the  attack,  which  he  now  says  that  I  made  on  him. 


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I  commented  in  a  speech  in  the  House  of  Kepresentatives  on  Governor 
Brown's  course  as  an  anonymous  scribbler,  and  I  commented  on  his  evidence, 
whii:h  I  iiad  a  perfect  right  to  do,  he  being  a  witness — he  surely  could  not 
4^ightfull3^,^blame  me  because  other  witnesses  swore  directly  opposite  to 

iaimself-nt-  -i 
r  Governor  Brown  sought  to  crush  me  because  I  fearlessly  exposed  him  and 
lis  artful  practices. 
I  assure  you  that  this  is  not  a  personal  controversy,  but  one  iu  which  you 
ire  deeplyf interested.  It  is  for  you  to  saj  whether  you  benefit  your  State 
y  forgiving  and  condoning  treachery  and  treason  on  the  part  of  men  whom 
yoif  have  trusted  with  your  offices  and  your  honor. 

It  is  for  you  to  determine  whether  you  will  say  in  effect,  to  the  rising  gen- 
eration of  young  men  of  your  State, — "Get  money, — it  matters  not  how  you 
get  it,  and  we  will  grant  you  full  and  free  forgiveness  for  treason  and  treach- 
eiy  to  your  mother,  Georgia." 

That  Governor  Brown  will  make  a  good  fair-weather  Senator,  when  no 
p?rsonal  interest  is  to  be  subserved  by  betraying  his  State — who  doubts  ? — 
b  it  is  he  a  safe  Pilot  for  the  ship  of  State  in  a  storm  ? 

Our  noble  w^omen  annually  gather  around  the  graves  of  our  gallant  and 
devoted  dead,  and  scatter  flowers  over  their  last  resting  places,  and  their 
memories  and  good  deeds  are  perpetuated  by  orators  all  over  our  sunny  land, 
for  what  purpose  ?  if  it  is  not  to  instill  into  the  youth  of  our  country  a  feel- 
ing that  loyalty  to  State  and  country  is  remembered  by  loving  hearts  ? 

Can  those  same  hearts  beat  in  unison,  with  one  who,  though  of  our  own 
blood,  stood  side  by  side  with  the  despoilers  and  ravishers  of  our  State,  and 
assisted  in  holding  our  hands  while  the  chains  were  being  riveted  on  us,  and 
our  substance  scattered  by  his  vandal  associates  ?  You  cannot  blame  Bullock 
and  his  gang,  and  exonerate  Governor  Brown. 

I  have  heard  men  say  recently,- — "You  people  of  Muscogee  have  just  cause 
to  be  indignant,  but  other  parts  of  the  State  don't  feel  so."  There  was  a 
time  in  the  history  of  this  country  when  the  cry  rang  out  from  Maine  to 
Georgia  that  "the  cause  of  Massachusetts  was  the  cause  of  all."  If  we  have 
just  cause,  have  not  you  also  ?    Are  we  not  all  Georgians  ? 

I  appeal  to  the  young  men  of  Georgia  not  to  forgive  or  forget  the  men 
who  proved  false  to  Georgia  in  the  hour  of  her  travail. 

The  man  who  left  you  in  your  trouble,  and  went  over  to  your  enemies,  and 
who  now  comes  back,  v/ith  no  claims  on  you,  except  that  he  is  rich  and 
crafty,  is  not  a  safe  adviser  or  a  worthy  example. 

The  condition  of  affairs  in  Georgia  at  the  present  time  is  very  peculiar.  I 
beg  to  remind  you  of  the  memorable  words  of  the  Boman  Cicero,  who  said 
to  a  public  assembly  in  Silesia  on  his  return  from  Borne,  where  he  had  been 
on  a  visit,  "I  found  a  party  for  Pompey,  and  I  found  a  party  for  Csesar,  but 
none  for  Bome  !" 

Fellow- citizens  and  Georgians,  let  us  stand  together  for  principles,  not 
merely  for  men, — and  in  this  way  you  will  purify  you.r  public  service,  and 
make  your  pubhc  servants  fear  to  do  wrong. 

LOUIS  F.  GABBAED. 

Columbus,  Ga.,  July  13th,  1880. 


GAERARD'S  REPLY  TO  EX-GOY.  J.  K  BROWN. 


The  Discussion  Grows  a  Little  Warmer. — Mr.  Garrards  Strict- 
ures on  Ex-  Governor  Brownh  Reconstruction  Record — 
His  Course  in  the  Columbus  Trial. 

Atlanta  Constitutiou  of  Sept.  26,  1879.] 

Editoks  Constituton: — My  attention  has  been  called  to  the  article  of  ex- 
Oovernor  Joseph  E.  Brown  in  your  issues  of  the  24th  and  25th  instants  iu 
which  I  am,  to  some  extent,  the  subject  of  his  story.  / 

It  seems  that  eleven  years  ago  he  was  attacked  by  "intellectual  giants"  for 
selling  himself  for  more  silver  than  Judas  Iscariot  got  for  a  similar  service — 
perfidy  and  treason,  and  his  delicate  situation  with  the  United  States  Govem- 
naent  at  that  time  clearly  prevented  him  from  opening  his  lips. 

He  has  lived  up  to  this  time  ;  in  this  the  similitude  fails,  for  J udas  gave 
up  his  shekels  and  committed  suicide. 

He  has  lived  and  has  prospered,  and  now  has  to  thank  an  "intellectual 
pigmy"  for  the  opportunity  of  vindicating  his  good  name,  and  of  washing  off 
the  filth  and  smirch  therefrom,  so  that  it  may  shine  in  all  its  former  clear- 
ness and  fairness. 

I  am  free  to  admit  that  perhaps  the  Almighty  in  His  wisdom  did  not,  in 
giving  me  being,  endow  me  with  the  gigantic  intellect  of  Governor  Brown, 
but  I  have  to  thank  Him  on  my  knees  that  what  little  mind  He  has  given  me 
is  not  venal ;  that  He  has  preserved  me  so  far  from  selling  myself  or  from 
seeking  to  oppress  and  degrade  the  people  among  whom  I  was  born. 

I  have  also  to  thank  Him  that  I  have  not  merited  the  "condescension  of 
his  (Brown's)  notice,"  and  that  my  practices  and  conduct  as  a  representative 
do  not  come  up  to  Governor  Brown's  standard  of  propriety.  Were  it  other- 
wise I  would  resign  and  go  home  to  my  constituents  in  disgrace  and  remorse. 

It  becomes  my  duty,  as  I  humbly  conceive  it,  to  reply  to  the  apology  of 
Governor  Brown  "for  the  good  of  the  public,"  for  it  is  proper  that  Georgians 
should  remember  that  the  man  whom  they  honored  by  lifting  him  from  com- 
parative obscurity  and  poverty  and  placing  him  in  the  Executive  chair,  and 
who  emerged  therefrom  after  the  war  had  wrecked  and  ruined  our  State,  a 
wealthy  man,  whose  sudden  riches  were  the  puzzle  and  enigma  of  our  his- 
tory— for  a  fee  prosecuted  his  fellow-citizens  before  a  military  commission 
in  1868. 

We  must  not  forget,  we  cannot  forgive,  a  crime  of  such  enormity. 
Let  them  go  down  to  history  together — Iscariot,  Benedict  Arnold,  and 
Joseph  E.  Brown. 

I  will  answer  him  in  the  order  of  his  reply. 
First,  as  to  the  Ashburne  case. 

His  situation,  it  seems,  as  to  his  client,  the  United  States  Government, 
permits  him  now  to  open  his  lips,  sealed  hitherto  by  professional  honor. 
What  has  worked  this  change  ? 
Why  has  he  been  so  long  a  martyr? 

When  Georgia  passed  the  14th  amendment,  and  was  again  recognized  as  a' 
State,  why  did  he  not  then  tell  us  what  he  now  asks  us  to  believe  ? 

Would  General  Meade  h^e  objected  ?  Surely  not,  for  the  General  in  1868 
was  so  beset  by  the  indignation  of  the  press  and  people  of  the  whole  coun- 
try, that  he,  by  permission  of  his  superior,  published  a  vindication  of  him- 
self as  to  said  Ashburn  trial,  and  he  would  have  been  thankful  for  help. 

Surely  the  joint  statement  at  that  time  of  the  General  and  the  ex-Govemor 
to  the  effect  that  the  former  had  hired  the  latter  to  take  charge  of  the  case 
and  to  control  it,  upon  the  express  understanding  that  nobody  was  to  be 
hurt ;  that  habeas  corpus  before  a  civil  court  to  take  the  prisoners  from  the 


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military  court  was  in  contemplation  ;  that  the  ex-Governor  was  only  to  scare 
the  people  of  Georgia  for  their  good  and  for  five  thousand  dollars,  or  other 
large  sum,  surely,  I  say,  after  the  tragedy,  such  a  pretty  farce  would  have 
been  a  roaring  one,  and  we  good  people  of  Georgia  would  have  laughed  at 
the  fright  all  had  endured,  and  would  have  rejoiced  that  "our  Joe had  got- 
ten so  many  shekels  of  silver  by  "so  sly,  so  devilish  sly,"  a  ruse,  and  even 
the  prisoners  who  had  sweated  in  the  sweat-boxes,  and  had  languished,  with- 
out friends,  counselor  daylight  iu  cells  two  feet  ten  inches  wide  in  June, 
might  have  fanned  themselves  as  they  read  it,  and  maybe  would  have  smiled 
with  the  rest ! 

Meade  spoke  then  ;  *  Brown  was  silent :  the  client  lifted  the  injunction  of 
secrecy  ;  the  lawyer  did  not  speak. 

Meade  is  now  dead,  and  the  lawyer,  when  driven  to  the  wall,  speaks. 
Meade  is  the  other  party  to  the  contract,  and  by  all  the  rules  of  evidence, 
Brown  is  not  a  competent  witness,  for  Meade  is  not  here  to  deny  or  admit 
his  statements. 

Let  us  waive  this,  however,  and  let  his  testimony  go  to  the  dear  people  for 
whom  he  has  endured  obloquy  and  shame— for  what  it  is  worth. 

If  I  am  an  "intellectual  pigmy"  I  will  endeavor  not  to  be  contracted  in  my 
sense  of  justice.  Let  us  see  if  Meade's  statement  and  Brown's  apology  are 
alike : 

In  the  Cincinnati  Commercial^  a  Kadical  paper,  was  published  a  synopsis  of 
General  Meade's  report  on  this  trial,  which  may  be  seen  by  referring  to  the 
Atlanta  Constitution  of  the  13th  September,  1868,  It  is  too  long  to  insert 
here.  It  admits  most  of  the  charges  made  in  the  statement  of  the  prisoners, 
as  to  sweat-boxes,  etc.,  and  it  says  that  on  the  26th  June,  1868,  the  General 
sent  to  the  Secretary  of  War  the  following  communication  : 

"I  deem  it  of  the  utmost  importance,  not  only  for  the  ends  of  justice,  but 
for  my  personal  vindication,  that  the  Ashburne  murderers  should  be  tried  by 
military  commission ;  and  I  have  accordingly  ordered  the  trial  for  Monday 
next.  Before  going  North  I  retained  ex-Governor  Brown  as  counsel  for  the 
Government.  I  deem  his  services  of  great  importance,  not  only  for  his  legal 
ability,  but  for  the  influence  his  position  in  the  State  will  give  the  prose- 
cution. 

"He  has  been  actively  employed  during  my  absence. 

"But  to-day  on  my  asking  him  what  his  fee  would  be,  he  replied  $5,000. 

"I  stated  that  I  did  not  feel  authorized  to  pay  such  an  amount  without  the 
sanction  of  superior  authority. 

"He  expressed  his  willingness  to  withdraw  and  not  to  communicate  any 
information  he  had  obtained." 

General  Meade  then  advises  the  employment  of  ex-Governor  Brown  "in 
view  of  the  importance  of  the  case  and  me  fact  that  defendants  would  hire 
him." 

In  the  Constitution  of  September  19,  1868,  the  official  report  of  General 
Meade  to  General  Grant,  commanding  the  army,  is  given,  and  not  a  word  is 
said  therein  of  any  such  contract  as  Governor  Brown  relies  on,  nor  is  Gover- 
nor Brown's  name  mentioned  therein. 

This  rei)ort  is  expressly  made  for  personal  vindication  of  General  Meade, 
and  after  stating  the  whole  affair  from  his  standpoint,  he  says  "his  consci- 
ence is  clear,"  but  no  where  therein  nor  in  the  first  mentioned  document 
does  he  pretend  to  say  anything  to  the  effect  that  he  did  not  prosecute  with 
full  vigor  and  to  convict,  if  he  could,  the  prisoners  whom  he  terins  "mur- 
derers "  in  advance. 

No  one  can  rea  d  this  officer's  statements  and  fail  to  be  impressed  with 
his  vigor,  determination  to  succeed,  and  conviction^that  he  was  dealing  fear- 
lessly with  murderers. 

Now  for  Governor  Brown's  version  of  the  "contract." 

Viewed  in  the  light  of  General  Meade's  testimony,  it  is  palpable  that  if  he 
(Governor  Brown)  took  the  contract  for  the  Government,  intending'  at  the 
same  time  to  benefit  the  prisoners,  he  was  a  traitor  to  his  client,  whose  paid 
attorney  he  was.  • 

General  Meade  says  he  deemed  his  (Governor  Brown's)  services  "of  gieit 


5 


importance,  not  only  for  liis  legal  ability,  but  for  the  influence  his  position  in 
the  State  would  give  the  prosecution."  and  he  urges  his  Government  to 
accept  his  services  at  8-"', 000  fee.  else  the  defendants  might  retain  him. 

So,  General  Meade's  idea  evidently  was  to  pay  Governor  Brown  .:So,000  for 
his  legal  ability,  and  for  the  influence  his  position  as  ex-Govemor  would  give, 
and  to  pay  it  quickly,  before  the  prisoners  could  get  his  professional  aid. 

If  this  was  the  General's  version  of  his  contract,  and  if  this  is  the  true 
version — and  I  have  never  seen  any  denial  by  Governor  Brown  until  now — 
then  Governor  Brown  bartered  for  the  fee,  his  legal  services  and  his  influence 
as  a  public  man  in  Georgia,  without  quahfication  :  and  any  me^ital  reserva- 
tion on  the  part  of  Governor  Brown  to  help  the  prisoners  and  to  do  good  to 
Georgia  and  her  people  would  have  been  unprofessional,  to  use  the  mildest 
term. 

Governor  Brown  would -have  us  beheve  that  in  accepting  the  retainer  from 
the  United  States  Government  he  was  actuated  by  high  and  honorable  mo- 
tives, and  by  a  desire  to  aid  the  defendants  and  the  people  of  Georgia. 

Is  this  true  ?    Does  anybody  in  Georgia  believe  it  in  his  heart  ? 

The  brief  of  his  evidence  is  about  this :  That  General  Meade  desired  him  to 
be  associated  with  the  judge-advocate  as  the  defendants  would  be  represented 
by  an  array  of  very  able  counsel :  that  he  advised  Meade  not  to  prosecute 
the  prisoners  before  a  military  commission,  but  if  he  would  do  so,  that  he, 
Brown,  would  serve  as  counsel,  and  says  he  told  Meade  ''he  would  not  un- 
dertake it  -anless  he  (Brown)  controlled  it,"  and  that  he  would  do  his  duty 
faithfully  to  the  extent  of  his  ability  in- conducting  the  investigation  so  as  to 
ascertain  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  accused ;  that  Meade  promised  him 
that  he  would  hold  up  the  death  penalty,  etc. .  and  finally  he  fays : 

"I  stated  to  General  Meade  distinctly  that  I  was  opposed  to  trials  of  that 
character,  but  that,  in  my  opinion,  I  could  serve  the  interests  of  my  State 
and  her  people,  and  of  the  United  States  by  representing  the  prosecution  on 
these  t^rms." 

Such  was  the  contract  Governor  Brown  says  he  made  with  General  Meade 
whom  he  admits  to  have  been  a  "'mihtary  dictator." 

He  would  have  us  beheve  that  a  "military  dictator"  paid  him  a  large  fee  to 
* 'serve  the  interests  of  Georgia  and  her  people"  before  a  court  whose  judges 
had  swords  buckled  to  their  hips  and  brass  buttons  on  their  judicial  robes,  as 
"well  as  to  serve  the  govei'nment  of  the  United  States ! 

Imagine  such  a  contract  made  with  the  Czar  of  Eussia  or  the  Shah  of  Per- 
sia, or  any  other  "military  dictator:" 

Does  it  bear  plausibility  or  truth  on  its  face  ? 

But  let  us  get  back  to  those  times — the  dark  days  of  1868 — and  repeat  a 
\  little  of  the  "history  of  this  crime,"  so  that  we  may  see  if  anybod}'  then 
would  have  beHeved  such  a  contract  was  made,  if  General  Meade  and  Gover- 
nor Brown  had  both  sworn  to  it. 

The  counsel  of  the  prisoners,  with  three  lamented  exceptions,  are  alive 
and  know  that  Governor  Brown  wasted  no  time  in  the  examination  of  wit- 
nesses, asked  no  unnecessary  questions,  was  succinct,  able  and  pointed  in  his 
every  action  in  the  course  of  the  trial,  and  was  zealous  even  to  ferocity  in 
cross-examination  of  defendant's  witnesses,  especially  of  two  ladies  of  the 
highest  social  standing,  and  that  by  no  word  or  act  did  he  lead  them  to  be- 
lieve aught  except  that  he  was  doing  his  very  best  as  a  skillful  lawyer  to  gain 
his  case  and  to  convict  the  prisoners,  and  this  too,  after  the  alibi  of  Duke, 
overwhelming  in  its  nature,  had  been  made  out  so  that  the  backbone  of 
the  prosecution  was  confessedly  broken. 

I  say  these  gentlemen  are  alive  and  easily  accessible,  and  Governor  Brown 
will  scarcely  deny  the  above  statement ;  if  he  does  have  the  temerity  to  do 
so,  we  will  ask  these  lawyers  who  really  did  try  to  serve  the  prisoners  and  the 
people  of  Georgia,  but  not  the  United  States  Government,  if  Governor 
Brown  did  not  conduct  the  case  as  I  have  stated. 

Again,  what  was  the  impression  made  on  the  people  of  Georgia  as  to  Gov- 
ernor Brown's  conduct  ? 

I  quote  from  the  Atlanta  Constitution  of  the  18th  day  of  July,  1868 : 

""NYe  are  told  that  Joseph  E.  Bro-«Ti,  before  engaging  with  the  Government 


6 


to  prosecute  the  Columbus  prisoners,  put  himself  in  mark^  for  the  highest 
bid,  acting  himself  as  a  'prize'  to  his  own  claims  between  the  two  parties, 
and  that  when  spoken  to  by  the  prisoners,  he  very  coolly  informed  them  that 
the  Government  was  very  anxious  to  secure  his  services,  but  that  the  highest 
bidder  would  secure  them  as  he  was  on  the  market  for  a  price.  A  man  who 
would  thus  disgrace  the  profession  of  which  he  claims  to  be  an  honorable 
member,  should  be  scouted  by  every  legal  gentleman  in  the  land. 

The  voice  of  their  indignation  should  greet  him  in  every  wind  and  their 
scorn  follow  him  wherever  he  goes. 

' '  The  meanness  of  the  act  resolves  itself  into  a  crime  when  we  consider  how 
corrupt  the  motive  that  would  prompt  him  to  extort  contending  bids,  on  the 
one  hand  from  an  unfortunate  class  of  his  own  fellow-citizens  against  a  Gov- 
ernment and  a  contemptible  party  on  the  other,  whose  tyranny  is  as  infamous 
as  it  is  justly  odious.  When  such  venality  is  practiced  by  men  seeking 
'high  places'  what  may  be  expected  of  less  pretenders  ?" 

In  a  later  issue  of  the  Constitution  this  same  matter  is  again  charged  on 
Governor  Brown,  and  I  have  found  no  denial  by  him  of  it.  s 

It  is  a  principle  of  law  wh'ich  Governor  Brown,  or  even  "the  most  ignorant 
justice  of  the  peace  in  Georgia, "  must  admit  as  good  doctrine,  that  it  a  man 
listens  to  an  accusation  against  himself  on  a  material  matter  without  denying 
it  he  lends  an  affirmation  to  its  truth. 

This  accusation  of  the  Constitution  comports  with  General  Meade's  state- 
ment that  the  government  had  better  pay  him  $5,000,  else  the  defendants 
"would  have  him  ;"  so  Governor  Btown  must  have  intimated  to  the  General 
that  the  ' '  Columbus  prisoners"  would  pay  him  a  large  fee  if  the  Government 
did  not  hurry  up  and  retain  him.  ^ 

Poor  General  Meade.    How  he  was  fooled  ! 

I  doubt  if  the  prisoners  were  worth  $5,000  in  worldly  goods,  all  told,  and 
surely  they  were  not  lacking  in  counsel  of  great  ability,  able  and  willing  to 
serve  them. 

In  the  Constitution  of  July  19,  1868,  appears  this  comment  on  Governor 
Brown : 

"Of  the  judge  advocate.  General  Dunn,  it  has  afforded  us  a  pleasure  on 
more  than  one  occasion  to  acquaint  the  public  of  his  courteous  and  gentle- 
manly deportment  to  all  parties  engaged  in  the  trial  of  the  Columbus  priso- 
ners, and  especially  to  the  lady  witnesses  ;  while  in  the  same  breath  we  have 
considered  it  a  duty  to  expose  the  ungentlemanly  behavior  of  his  hireling 
assistant,  Joseph  E.  Brown.  ****** 
The  conduct  of  Governor  Brown  in  cross-examining  the  ladies  of  the  family 
'  beggars  contempt ;'  he  refused  them  the  benefit  of  common  courtesy  ;  too 
coarse  to  be  polite,  too  cowardly  to  be  generous,  too  crafty  to  be  honest,  the 
character  of  the  witnesses  was  forgotten  in  his  eager  desire  to  clutch  the  con- 
ditional fee  that  was  to  follow  conviction." 

In  a  speech  made  by  the  Hon.  Benjamin  H.  Hill  in  Atlanta,  and  published 
in  the  Constitution  of  July  25,  18G8,  he  said  : 

"They  sent  down  an  army  of  bayonets  to  make  war  upon  an  unarmed 
people ;  they  bought  up  the  men  you  have  honored  to  co-operate  in  the  foul 
work.    [Cries  of  Joe  Brown,"] 

"I  did  not  call  that  name.  It  should  not  be  mentioned  in  decent  com- 
pany." • 

In  a  speech  delivered  by  the  Honorable  Eobert  Toombs  August  25,  1868, 
at  Cedar  Town,  lef erring  to  Governor  Brown,  he  said  : 
"He  has  betrayed  his  natural  and  foster  mother. 

'  'More  bitter  far  than  a  serpent's  tooth  it  is  to  have  a  thankless  child. 
"He  is  false  to  nature.    What  more  can  I  say  to  commend  this  wretch  to 
your  detestation. 

"He  has  fatigued  public  indignation  ;  it  is  no  longer  equal  to  his  crimes. 
"Ignoble  villain  I    buoyant  solely  from  corruption,  he  only  rises  as  he 
rots!" 

It  is  not  necessary  to  extend  quotations  from  the  press  of  Georgia -at  that 
time,  nor  from  the  utterances  of  other  distinguished  Georgians  delivered  in 
public  addresses,  for  I  would  only  impose  on  your  kindness  in  giving  me  your 


7 


columns  for  my  reply  to  Governor  Brown's  apology.    The  excerpts  I  have 
given  show  the  drift  of  public  opinion  at  the  time. 

On  July  25th,  18GS,  the  Columbus  prisoners,  Doctor  E.  J.  Kirkscey,  Messrs, 
W.  D.  Chipley,  C.  C.  Bedell,  R.  A.  Wood,  and  five  others  published  over 
their  signatures  in  the  Columbus  Sun  a  card  giving  an  account  of  their  arrest,  " 
imprisonment,  treatment,  etc.,  which  harrows  the  feelings  of  any  human 
being  with  a  heart. 

I  will  not  copy  it  here,  but  will  be  glad  to  show  to  any  one,  and  especially 
the  men  in  this  State,  who  have  attained  majority  since  then,  so  that  we  may 
not  forget  this  outrage  on  civil  Uberty.  In  the  conclusion  of  said  card  they 
say: 

"The  officers  and  soldiers  of  the  garrison  were  as  kind  as  their  orders 
would  permit,  and  respectful,  with  but  few  exceptions. " 

Greneral  Dunn's  courtesy  during  the  trial,  especially  after  "Duke's  aHbi," 
was  in  strong  contrast  with  the  vindictive,  ungenerous  and  unmanly  conduct 
of  Joe  Brown. 

Let  it  be  understood  what  the  "Duke  alibi"  was. 

Some  of  the  depraved  and  suborned  witnesses  for  the  Government  had 
sworn  that  Mr.  Duke  was  one  of  the  murderers,  and  that  the  truth  of  the 
whole  testimony  was  based  upon  the  fact  that  Duke  was  present  and  fired  at 
Ashburn. 

Numbers  of  respectable  and  intelligent  people,  the  family  and  neighbors  of 
Duke  in  Meriwether  county,  were  put  on  the  witness'  stand  and  proved  him 
at  his  father's  house  in  said  county,  forty  miles  from  Columbus,  on  the  day 
of  the  murder,  and  on  the  night  of  the  same. 

The  person  with  whom  he  boarded  swore  he  was  not  in  Columbus  ;  the 
man  who  hired  hjm  the  buggy  swore  to  it,  so  did.  the  man  who  slept  in  the 
same  bed  with  him  on  the  night  in  question,  a  dozen  other  witnesses  proved 
his  arrival  in  Meriwether  that  day,  among  them  a  prominent  physician,  Dr. 
Stiles,  and  others,  who  knew  of  the  date  of  certain  cotton  transactions  in 
LaGrange  and  their  recollection  was  confirmed  by  the  books  of  the  cotton 
dealers  in  LaGrange. 

Thus  was  an  unequaled  ahbi  established  and  not  by  Columbus  witnesses. 
The  cross-examination  of  Governor  Brown  on  these  witnesses  of  Duke's,  as 
the  stern  truth  came  out  that  the  v/ituehiSdS  for  the  Government  had  wilfully 
lied,  was  a  model  of  its  kind,  a  desperate  struggle  to  beat  back  the  truth  at 
all  hazards. 

After  this,  say  the  prisoners,  the  difference  between  the  conduct  of  General 
Dunn  and  Governor  Brown  was  marked  to  the  discredit  of  the  fetter.  Such 
seems  to  have  been  the  impression  made  on  the  public  according  to  the  daily 
press. 

If  his  object  was  "to  ascertain  the  guilt  or  innocence"  of  the  prisoners, 
did  he  move  to  release  Mr:  Duke  after  this  perfect  alibi  ?  Of  course  he  did 
not. 

After  such  an  "alibi"  one  moment  of  imprisonment  for  Duke  was  a  hideous 
crime  on  the  part  of  the  "powers  that  were,"  and  Governor  Brown  says  his 
contract  was  that  he  was  to  control  the  case,  after  his  employment.  Who  was 
responsible  for  the  crime  ? 

General  Meade  could  not  withstand  the  wrath  of  the  liberty -loving  people 
of  America,  and  he  published  his  so-called  "vindication."  Meade  had  com- 
manded at  Gettysburg,  and  he  was  fearful  that  history  had  a  black  page  for 
his  connection  with  this  crime. 

Governor  Brown  had  made  civil  fame  :  was  he  not  warned  by  every  means 
possible  that  he  had  better  repent  and  "vindicate"  himself  then,  if  he  did 
not  intend  to  go  down  on  the  pages  of  history  as  a  renegade  and  traitor  to  the 
people  who  had  honored  him  ? 

Let  us  see  by  his  ov/n  utterances  at  th?.t  time  if  he  Wi-.s  in  a  frame  of  mind 
to  repent  the  crime. 

He  was  made  Chief  Justice  of  Georgia — God  save  the  mark !  After  his 
appointment  to  this  exalted  office  he  made  a  speech,  on  August  19,  18G8,  to  a 
large  assembly  of  negroes,  in  Atlanta,  in  which  li  e  is  reported  to  have  said  : 

"The  object  of  the  democracy  is  to  destroy  negro  suifrage  in  the  soi;th. 


B 

i 

''When  did  jou  ever  hear  of  4,000,000  freemen,  with  the  ballot  in  their 
Ittands,  surrendering  it  without  bloodshed?  They  wOuld  be  less  than  men  if 
they  did. 

"If  you  let  them  alone,  they  will  vote  peaceably;  if  you  don't,  my  white 
friends,  you  will  provoke  a  state  of  things  in  which  you  will  be  the  greatest 
sufferers.  Your  houses,  your  villages  and  your  towns  are  pledged  to  peace  ! 
There  are  3i),000  white  republicans  in  Georgia — there  are  90,01)0  of  you,  my 
colored  frends. " 

It  was  at  a  time  of  great  excitement ;  the  Grant  campaign  was  at  its  high- 
est; the  negroes  were  inflamed  and  looked  upon  the  whites  as  their  natural 
■enemies,  and  but  a  spark  was  needed"  to  fire  them  to  any  violence.  Under 
these  circumstances  it  was  this  Chief  Justice  of  the  State  v/ho  suggested 
to  them  that  the  houses,  villages  and  towns  of  Georgia  were  pledges  of  peace. 
How?    What  did  he  mean,  and  how  was  he  understood  at  the  time  ? 

The  next  issue  of  the  Constitution,  alluding  to  this  speech,  said : 

"The  thing  by  whom  the  office  of  Chief  Justice  of  this  State  is  to  be  dis- 
graced has  grown  violent  since  his  appointment  to  that  position.  ■ 

"His  speech  to  the  negroes  on  Tuesday  was  highly  tinctured  with  red. 

"It  was  violent  and  incendiary  in  tendency." 

Was  this  the  man  to  help  Georgia  aiid  her  people,  by  'controlling'  a  trial 
of  citizens  before  a  military  commission,  with  a  full  knowledge  of  all  the 
barbarities  practiced  on  the  prisoners,  before  and  during  the  trial  ? 

Again,  on  Jul;/  3d,  18G8,  an  affidavit  was  made  by  one  V/m.  H.  Keed,  a 
Government  detective,  in  Washington.  D.  C,  v/hich  affidavit  was  presented 
to  the  military  court  and  published  in  the  Atlanta  papers.  This  man  Eeed 
was  the  subaltern  under  H.  C.  Whitley,  the  chief  detective. 

It  detailed  the  barbarities  and  the  means  used  by  Vvhitley  to  make  wit- 
nesses perjure  themselves;  as  he  says,  "These  parties  gavcno  evidence  until 
they  were  imprisoned,  tired  out,  and  the  evidence  wrung  from  them,''  and 
that  the. witnesses  were  drilled  so  as  to  "tell  the  same  story." 

He  says  in  conclusion:  "Whitley  remarked  to  me  frequently  that  this 
whole  case  was  a  political  move,  and  the  conviction  of  the  prisoners  would 
he  a  big  thing." 

Did  Governor  Brown  quit  the  case  when  this  disgusting  affidavit,  revealing 
the  practices  of  Whitley,  was  read  in  the  military  court  ? 

On  the  contrary,  he  went  on  as  calmly  with  the  business  of  that  day  in 
oourt  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  and  continued  as  counsel. 

Did  Whitley  tell  the  truth?  Was  this  a  "political  move,"  and  did  Gover- 
nor Brown  think  to  help  "Georgia  and  her  people"  by  aiding  the  Eadical 
party  in  Jcftie  and  July,  as  he  did  in  the  speech  of  August  19,  18(58?  Was 
this  his  little  game  ? 

In  conclusion,  Mr.  Editor.  I  have  hastily  thrown  together  the  foregoing  as 
a  reply  to  the  apology,  so  far  as  the  Ashburn  case  is  concerned.  I  think  it 
"beyond  all  doubt  that  General  Meade  never  made  any  contract  with  Governor 
Brown,  except  to  prosecute  with  all  his  (Brown's)  ability  and  vigor,  and  I 
submit  that  this  conclusion  is  inevitable,  when  we  consider  all  the  circum- 
stances. 

In  my  next  I  will  reply  to  the  second  part  of  the  apology.  Thanking  you 
for  your  courtesy  in  permitting  me  to  use  your  columns,  I  am,  your  obedient 
servant,  LOUIS  F.  GAERARD. 


GAEKAED'S  EEPLY  TO  EX-GOY.  J.  E.  BEOWK. 

Evidence  Presented  to  Show  the  Character  of  the  Ashlmrn  Trial 
and  How  Witnesses  were  Treated. — How  the  Penitentiary 
Committee  Proceeded'  with  its  W ork. 

Atlanta  Constitutiou  of  Sept.  28,  1879.] 

Editors  Constitution  :  The;  second  part  of  Governor  Brown's  apology  is 
devoted  to  strictures  upon  the  conduct  of  the  special  committee  appointed  by 


t 

9 

the  House  of  Eepr.isentatives  to  investigate  the  office  of  the  pi-incipal  keeper 
of  the  penitentiary,  of  which  he  says  I  "assumed  to  be  the  leading  spirit," 
and  he  draws  a  comparison  between  the  proceedings  of  that  committee  and 
the  miUtary  commission  which  tried  the  Columbus  prisoners,  contending 
that  the  former  was  a  "star  chamber,'"  and  the  latter  a  fair,  jusi  and  impar- 
tial court — and  "that  so  far  as  the  fairness  and  regularity  of  the  investigation 
is  conctji^ed,  there  is  no  comparison  between  the  two  cases."  The  Governor 
then  pi^Ceedr,  to  state  the  manner  of  conducting  the  trial  before  the  military 
commission,  that  the  prisoners  and  their  counsel  were  present  and  cross- 
examined  fully  the  witnesses,  etc.,  etc.,  but  the  Governor  neglected  to  state 
who  those  witnesses  were,  and  how  they  had  been  treated  before  their  ap- 
pearance in  court,  to  force  them  to  testify  to  suit  the  case  the  Governor  was 
then  prosecuting  for  a  large  fee.  He  is  a  bold  man  to  draw  a  comparison  at 
all,  "but  not  bold  enough  to  continue  his  comparison  to  the  character  of  the 
evidence  and  the  manner  of  obtaining  it.  I  v/ill  not  undertake  in  my  own 
language  to  tell  the  tale,  but  will  let  one  of  the  tools  used  by  the  prosecution 
to  extort  this  evidence — relate  it  in  all  its  horror.  As  stated  in  my  first  reply, 
the  gOYcrnment  detective,  William  H.  Beed,  overcone  by  remorse,  made  an 
affidavit  on  July  3,  18G8,  from  which  I  make  the  following  extracts  : 

"At  the  fort  (Pulaski)  one  of  the  negroes.  John  Wells,  was  taken  out  of  his 
cell  and  put  into  a  chair  in  one  of  the  casemates  with  a  cannon  pointed  at 
his  head,  and  a  soldier  hold  of  the  string  ready  to  snap  the  cap,  apparently  to 
shoot  the  g\m  ;  a  barber  slushed  his  head  full  of  lather  and  pretended  to  be 
ready  to  shave  his  head.  This  was  done  to  have  him  give  evidence  in  regard 
to  killing  Ashburn,  the  negro  ail  the  time  contending  he  knew  nothing  about 
the  murder.  This  farce  v/as  kept  up  about  ten  minutes.  Finally  they  put 
him  back  in  his  cell  with  tlie  understanding  that  if  he  did  not  tell  something 
it  would  be  worse  for  him.  They  took  the  other  negro,  John  Stapler,  and 
put  him  before  the  gun  with  no  better  success.  He  was  afterwards  put  in  a 
sweat  box  and  kv^pt  there  in  great  punishment  for  at  least  thirty  hours,  until 
Ms  legs  swelled,  and  I  took  him  out  of  the  box,  being  convinced  he  knew 
nothing  about  the  case."    Another  extract  from  same  affidavit : 

"In  my  frequent  conversations  with  this  man  Bennett  '(one  of  the  main 
witnesses  for  the  prosecution),'  his  prevarications  convinced  me  if  any  one 
was  guilty  of  killing  Ashb^^rn  this  man  Bennett  was  guilty.  After  this  Bennett 
was  put  in  a  cell  with  Betz,  to  see  if  he  could  not  draw  some  evidence  from 
him.  After  he  (Bennett)  was  put  in  a  room  with  Betz  and  Stevens,  with  a 
view  of  still  obtaining  evidence  from  both  of  them  together,  he  (Bennett)  ad- 
mitted to  me  that  he  was  in  the  crowd  that  done  the  shooting  at  Ashburn, 
and  persuaded  Betz  and  Stevens  to  acknowledge  the  complicity  of  the  pris- 
oners arrested,  with  the  murder." 

He  then  goes  on  to  say  that  these  perjurers  were  promised  protection  frotn 
punishment,  and  says  that  the  witnesses,  Amanda  Patterson,  Bennett,  Betz, 
Marshall  and  Stevens,  were  all  of  the  prisoners  that  pretended  to  know  any- 
thing about  the  murder,  and  that  they  gave  no  evidence  until  they  were  im- 
prisoned, tired  out  and  the  evidence  wrung  from  them.  That  Amanda 
Patterson  was  educated  in  the  evidence  she  was  to  give,  and  that  Betz  and 
Stevens  were  made  to  repeat  the  evidence  over  and  over  again  so  as  to  have 
them  perfect,  so  that  when  they  were  called  on  to  give  their  evidence  they 
would  not  contradict  themselves  and  each  one  tell  the  same  story. 

That  the  witnesses  were  told  that  the  government  had  offered  a  large  re- 
ward, and  if  the  parties  under  arrest  were  convicted,  they,  the  witnesses, 
would  get  their  share  of  the  rev/ard  offered.  He  also  swore  that  Whitly,  the 
chief  detective,  told  him  that  the  whole  case  was  a  "political  move."  This  is 
the  manner  of  obtaining  the  evidence  on  which  Governor  Brown  attempted  to 
convict  the  Columbus  prisoners,  and  he  did  not  cease  his  efforts  to  convict 
even  after  this  affidavit  was  read  to  the  commission.  He  knew  then  the 
character  of  the  evidence  he  was  using,  if  he  did  not  know  it  before,  and  yet 
he  still  used  it !  As  a  general  rule  the  lawyer  who  has  absolute  control  of  the 
managem««t,,t  of  a  case,  as  Governor  Brown  says  he  had  in  this  case,  knows 
the  nature  and  the  source  of  his  evidence  and  how  it  was  procured,  and  I  see 
no  reason  to  exclude  the  ex-Governor  from  the  rule. 


10 


Before  the  legislative  committee  the  stenographer  was  sworn  to  take  down 
the  testimony  impartially  as  it  feU  from  the  mouths  of  the  witnesses,  and  the 
witnesses  were  examined  fully  by  the  various  members  of  the  committee,  and 
if  some  of  the  testimony  may  appear  irrelevant,  it  was  lefb  in  because  the 
committee  decided  to  suppress  nothing,  but  to  let  the  record  show  it  all,  for 
what  some  of  us  may  have  thought  irrelevant,  others  might  have  thought  rel- 
evant. No  sweat  boxes»  or  cannon,  or  threats  were  made  by  the  oommittee 
or  any  one  in  its  interest  to  extort  or  color  their  evidence,  or  even  thought  of 
unless  by  the  ex-Governor,  when  he  demanded  to  be  present. 

The  military  commission  of  1868  was  organized  by  a  "military  dictator,"  as 
the  Governor  styles  him,  without  authority  of  law,  and  in  defiance  of  law,  to 
try  men  for  their  lives,  charged  with  a  crime  of  which  it  had  no  jurisdiction. 
The  committee  was  appointed  to  investigate  the  condition  and  management 
of  a  public  office  for  the  information  of  the  House  of  Ilepresentatives  and  by 
its  authority. 

The  military  commission  of  1868  proceeded  with  the  case,  and  Governor 
Brown  sought  a  conviction  after  it  was  apparent  by  sworn  evidence  that  the 
testimony  for  the  government  was  false  and  extorted  by  cruelties  unheard  of 
in  this  age  and  country,  and  as  the  press  of  the  country  at  the  time  termed  it, 
a  revival  of  the  inquisition  of  the  12th  century. 

The  committee  called  the  pi'incipal  keeper  among  the  first  witnesses,  and 
under  oath  he  admitted  the  main  charge  against  him,  among  others,  that  he 
had  made  a  contract  by  which  he  was  to  receive  $12  per  head  on  all  convicts 
dehvered  to  the  lessees  ;  that  some  of  the  lessees  denied  that  the  contract  ap- 
phed  to  the  general  delivery  on  April  1,  and  that  he  threatened  to  move  some 
of  the  convicts  to  Macon  if  eight  dollars  a  head  was  not  paid ;  that  it  was 
paid  under  protest,  and  the  convicts  on  which  said  money  was  so  paid  were 
not  moved  one  inch,  and  that  this  contract  was  a  private  contract. 

After  the  principal  keeper  had  made  this  admission,  what  need  had  he  for 
witnesses  on  that  branch  of  the  case,  and  was  not  that  enough  to  justify  a 
recommendation  to  the  House  to  request  the  Governor  to  remove  him  from 
his  office,  on  the  ground  that  he  had  used  his  official  power  to  enforce  said 
contract  alleged  by  him  to  have  been  made  as  a  private  contract  between  him- 
self as  an  individual  and  said  lessees  ?  But  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  with 
Governor  Brown  the  justice  of  our  report,  and  I  do  not  admit  that  the  prin- 
cipal keeper  had  the  right  to  be  present  while  we  were  investigating  the  office 
of  which  he  is  merely  an  incident.  He  has  no  vested  right  to  this  office.  It 
is  a  public  office,  and  not  his  piivate  property,  and  we  were  representing  the 
public  in  our  investigations. 

I  suspect  the  ex-Governor  is  mad  because  the  committee  would  not  accord 
to  him  privileges  to  which  no  witness  is  entitled.  We  did  not  think  he  had 
any  stronger  claims  than  ordinary  people,  and  we  treated  him  like  an  ordi- 
nary mortal.  The  Governor  ought  to  be  satisfied  with  my  treatment  on  that 
occasion,  for  he  says  I  acted  like  a  "sucking  dove." 

He  demanded  that  his  own  reporter  should  be  present  to  take  down  his  tes- 
timony. We  refused  it — because  we  had  one  who  was  under  oath  and  com- 
petent. The  Governor  does  not  charge  that  he  was  inaccuratelj''  reported, 
and  so  our  reporter  must  have  been  competent  and  honest. 

He  then  said,  "I  ask  now  that  Colonel  Nelms  and  all  other  parties  inter- 
ested be  permitted  to  come  before  you  and  examine  and  cross-examine 
witnesses  when  they  have  an  interest,  and  it  is  due  to  them  that  that  should 
be  done." 

The  committee  refused  it.  Why  did  the  Governor  make  the  request  ?  He 
was  only  a  witness  so  far  as  we  know ;  surely  he  was  not  the  paid  attorney  of 
the  principal  keeper.  Was  it  not  a  strange  request  for  a  mere  witness  to 
make?  In  what  character  was  he  before  the  committee?  He  stated  he  ap- 
peared only  as  a  witness.  Who  ever  heard  of  a  witness  taking  charge  of  a 
case  and  making  such  demands?  Would  the  "most  ignorant  justice  of  the 
peace  in  Georgia,"  from  whom  Governor  Brown  quotes  most  of  his  law,  say 
his  position  was  tenable  ?  I  do  not  say  what  Governor  Brown's  intent  was, 
nor  his  motive.  I  leave  the  public  to  judge.  I  am  satisfied  our  treatment  of 
him  was  proper. 


11 


After  calling  us  a  star  chamber  to  our  faces,  he  demanded  as  a  right  that  if 
any  point  of  his  testimony  conflicted  with  any  of  the  other  lessees,  that  we 
bring  them  together  before  the  committee,  and  let  them,  the  witnesses,  cross- 
interrogate  each  other,  so  that  they  could  reconcile  their  testimony.  Why 
did  Governor  Brown  make  this  extraordinary  request  of  the  committee? 
Was  there  any  inward  consciousness  that  told  him  he  had  made  statements 
that  other  witnesses,  who  were  also  sworn  to  tell  "the  truth,  the  v/hole  truth, 
and  nothing  but  the  truth,"  would  contradict?  Did  the  justice  of  the  peace, 
under  whom  he  seems  to  have  studied  law,  learn  him  such  law?-  Would  it 
not  have  prolonged  the  session  of  the  Legislature  almost  indefinitely  to  have 
endeavored  to  have  all  the  sworn  contradictions  of  Governor  Brown's  testi- 
mony "reconciled?"  Did  not  Governor  Brown  in  his  testimony  contradict 
his  own  "interview"  to  some  extent?  These  reflections  puzzle  me,  so  I  sub- 
mit them  to  your  consideration.  He  complains  that  we  denied  Mr.  Nelms  the 
privilege  of  hearing  the  evidence  and  cross-examining  the  witnesses.  When 
the  committee  had  finished  the  investigation  with  the  exception  of  two  pages 
of  comparatively  unimportant  testimony,  they  sent  for  the  principal  keeper 
and  read  to  him  his  own  testimony,  and  told  him  they  would  read  over  to 
him  the  testimony  of  all  the  witnesses,  and  recall  any  of  them  to  whom  he 
might  desire  to  submit  any  questions  in  writing.  He  had,  up  to  that  time, 
submitted  questions  in  writing.  He  declined  to  do  so,  and  the  committee 
reported.  Why  should  the  Governor  complain?  Does  he  represent  Mr. 
Nelms,  and  how  ? 

The  Governor  says  that  I  am  unable  to  draw  the  distinction  between  this 
case  and  an  investigation  looking  to  the  impeachment  of  an  officer,  and  he  re- 
fers to  the  conduct  of  the  committee  which  investigated  Goldsmith's  office. 
How  did  our  committee  know  whether  its  investigation  would  lead  to  an  im- 
peachment, a  removal  from  office  without  impeachment,  or  a  vindication  ? 

Does  the  ex-Governor  suppose  that  the  Goldsmith  wild  land  committee 
commenced  its  investigations  "looking  to  his  impeachment?"  Had  tliey  pre- 
judged him,  and  were  they  simply  k)oking  for  facts  on  which  to  impeach 
him  ?  Certainly  not.  And  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  Kenfroe  committee. 
Goldsmith  denied  the  charges  against  him,  and  he  was  put  on  trial  by  im- 
peachment. Renfroe  admitted  some  of  the  charges  against  him.,  and  he  was 
impeached  because  he  could  be  removed  in  no  other  way.  Nelms  admits  the 
main  charges  against  him,  and  we  recjommended  the  House  to  request  the 
Governor  to  remove  him — because  a  trial  was  useless  when  he  admitted 
enough  to  require  his  removal,  and  it  was  in  the  power  of  the  Governor  to 
remove  him.  We  thought  it  unnecessary  to  put  the  state  to  the  expense  of 
an  impeachment  trial,  when  he  could  be  removed  without  it. 

While  he  was  an  officer  that  could  be  impeached,  it  was  not  necessary  to 
adopt  that  expensive  remedy.  If  he  had  denied  what  he  admitted,  then  the 
Governor  might,  with  justice,  have  claimed  a  trial  for  him. 

The  ex-Governor  gets  mad  because  some  of  the  committee  had  grave 
doubts  about  the  existence  of  a  contract  between  Mr.  Nelms  and  Colonel  Tom 
Alexander,  which  he  swore  were  made  in  his  presence. 

The  ex-Governor  must  excuse  us  for  not  attaching  as  much  faith  to  his 
evidence  as  he  would  have  us  do.  ,.  I' am  frank  to  confess  that  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  such  a  Contract  was  made  as  the  ex-Governor  insists  on,  notwith- 
standing the  ex-Governor  swears  he  was  present  and  heard  it  made,  and  I 
will  give  my  reasons  for  not  believing  it. 

The  contract  claimed  to  have  been  made  between  Nelms  and  Alexander  was 
that  the  $12  per  head  on  convicts  delivered  to  the  lessees  was  to  include  the 
distribution  of  convicts  among  the  new  lessees  on  April  1,  1879,  as  well  as  on 
convicts  delivered  from  the  jails  before  that  time.  While  Governor  Brown 
was  in  Virginia,  Mr.  Nelms  and  Mr.  Elder  swore  before  the  committee  that 
such  a  contract  was  made,  and  that  Alexander,  Nelms  and  Elder  were  present 
when  it  was  made.  Both  were  asked  distinctly  if  Governor  Brown  was  pres- 
ent, and  they  swore  posilfvelj^  that  he  was  not  present.  Upon  his  return 
from  Virginia,  Governor  Brown  swore  that  he  was  present  with  Nelms  and 
Alexander,  and  probably  Elder,  and  heard  the  contract  made.  Nelms  then 
appf.ared  again  as  a  witness,  and  said  he  was  mistaken,  that  Governor  Brown 


12 


was  present.  Elder  never  did  change  his  evidence,  although  the  Governor 
says  he  applied  to  do  it. 

It  is  possible  that  when  the  ex-Governor  testified  he  did  not  know  of  the 
statements  made  by  Elder  and  Nelms  as  to  his  presence,  and  hence  on  dis- 
covering the  conflict,  his  anger  at  our  refusal  to  allow  all  the  witnessess  to  be 
present  and  hear  each  other  testify.  Does  he  not  know  that  it  is  a  famiUar 
rule  and  practice  of  the  courts  to  separate  witnesses  when  they  testify  ?  And 
does  he  not  know  the  wisdom  and  reason  of  the  practice  ?  Was  it  not  wise 
in  the  committee  to  enforce  that  rule  when  these  witnesses  were  examined  ? 
Does  not  the  result  demonstrate  it  ? 

If  this  contract  was  really  made,  it  applied  to  all  the  lessees,  and  all  of  them 
were  interested  in  it.  They  all  acknowledged  that  there  was  a  contract  to 
pay  Nelms  $12  a  head  on  convicts  delivered  from  the  jails  before  April  1st, 
1879. 

Colonel  Lockett,  the  President  of  Company  No.  2,  swore  that  Governor 
Brown,  in  a  letter  to  him,  stated  that  the  contract  made  with  Nelms  was  the 
same  as  it  had  been  with  the  former  keeper,  which  was  to  pay  $12  a  head  on 
convicts  delivered  from  the  jails,  and  nothing  was  said  about  paying  it  on  the 
general  delivery  in  April,  1879. 

If  there  was  such  a  contract  why  did  Governor  Brown  omit  it  in  his  letter  ? 
It  was  the  most  important  part  of  the  contract. 

When  Nelms,  long  after  Alexander's  death,  demanded  the  money  under  this 
alleged  contract,  W.  P.  Grant  and  W.  W.  Sin^pson  denied  the  contract  and 
called  on  Governor  Brown  to  get  his  understanding  of  it.  He  did  not  tell 
them  that  there  was  such  a  contract  made  in  his  presence  with  Alexander,  the 
President  of  their  Company,  but  on  the  contrary  he  told  Mr.  Simpson  that  he 
'  'i:^nd3rstood  from  Colonel  Alexander  that  he  was  to  pay  something  for  deliv- 
ering the  convicts  a  second  time  after  the  old  lease  expired."  and  told  Captain 
Grant,  "you  remember  on  the  1st  of  April,  by  our  contract,  I  am  to  have 
three  hundred  able-bodied,  long-termed  men,  and  I  don't  think  there  is  more 
than  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  npw  at  the  Dade  coal  mines,  and  I  have 
told  Nelms  I  would  pay  him  something  for  bringing  them,  and  he  will  have  to 
take  av/ay  those  that  are  not  able-bodied  from  the  Dade  coal  mines,  and  J 
suppose  that  you  other  lessees  would  pay  him  for  taking  them  away."  And 
actually  he  advised  them  to  see  Governor  Colquitt  about  Nelms'  demand  for 
the  $12  on  April  deliveries,  and  said  that  he  thought  it  was  a  hardship, 
"and  if  Nelms  was  to  ask  his  advice  in  the  matter  he  would  advise  against  it." 

He  never  intimated  to  them  that  there  was  a  contract  made  in  his  pres- 
ence. Would  he  not  then  have  told  them  of  the  contract,  if  in  fact  it  had 
been  made  ? 

Colonel  Alexander  was  well  known  in  Georgia,  and  I  understand  he  was 
open  and  honest  in  all  his  dealings,  and  it  stands  to  reason  that  if  he  had 
made  such  a  contract  he  would  have  told  it  to  his  partners  and  all  others  in- 
terested in  it.  He  would  not  have  made  it  in  the  presence  of  Governor 
Brown,  Nelms  and  Elder,  and  then  turned  right  around  and  denied  it  to  his 
partners.  Simpson  and  Grant,  his  partners,  both  swore  that  he  told  them,  at 
the  time,  that  the  contract  he  made  with  Nelms  was  that  he  was  to  pay  him 
$12  on  each  convict  delivered  from  the  jails  until  April  1st,  1879. 

Would  he  have  deceived  his  partners  ?    Did  he  make  such  a  contract  ? 

Dr.  Amos  Fox,  of  Atlanta,  was  the  most  intimate  friend  of  Alexander,  and 
represented  him  when  he  was  absent  from  Atlanta  in  matters  connected  with 
the  penitentiary.  He  swore  that  Alexander  told  him  "that  he  had  made  an 
agreement  by  which  he  was  to  pay  Nelms  $12  a  head  for  delivering  the  pris- 
oners from  the  jails  ;  these  were  the  terms  upon  which  they  settled.  I  asked 
him  how  long  the  contract  run  for,  and  he  informed  me  until  the  1st  of  April, 
1879." 

Y/hv  did  Alexander  deceive  Fox  ?    Did  he  deceive  him  ? 

For  these  reasons  I  think  the  committee  were  justifiable  in  having  grave 
doubts  that  there  was  ever  such  a  contract  made  als  the  ex-Governor  heard. 

The  ex-Governor  winces  under  this  overwhelming  evidence,  and  says  that 
it  is  illegal,  because  Alexander  is  dead  and  cannot  deny  it.  Does  he  not 
know  that  under  the  rules  of  evidence  he  is  incompetent  to  testify  to  this  con- 


13 


tract  ?  He  was  an  interested  party  to  it  and  so  was  Nelms.  Alexander  is 
dead,  und  under  the  law  they  cannot  speak,  and  yet  the  committee  heard 
them. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  ex-Governor  is  the  last  man  in  the  world  whose  in 
terest  it  is  to  establish  the  rule  that  the  death  of  one  party  seals  the  mouth  of 
the  other.    He  rarely  speaks  until  death  has  made  him  safe  by  closing  the 
lips  of  thos^who  would  contradict  him. 

If  Alexander  was  alive,  would  the  Governor  remember  being  present  when 
a  contract  was  made,  about  the  existence  of  which  there  is  so  much  doubt  ? 

If  General  Meade  was  living,  would  the  Governor's  apology  ever  have  ap- 
peared ?  Why  does  he  wait  until  men  ai'e  dead  before  he  speaks  ?  Is  it  be- 
cause he  wants  no  checks  on  his  ingenuity  and  conscience,  and  free  scope 
given  to  his  powers  of  explanation,  denial  and  apologies  ? 

I  see  from  the  Constitution,  of  the  27th  instant,  a  letter  from  General  Wil- 
liam Phillips,  in  which  he  says  such  a  conversation  as  Governor  Brown  alludes 
to  did  take  place  between  them.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  General's  recol- 
lection is  right  or  npt,  and  I  do  not  care.  If  Gov.  Brown  did  say  it  at  the  time, 
it  could  not  have  been  true,  and  he  must  have  been  manufacturing  testimony 
for  future  use.  The  facts  show  that  he  prosecuted  the  Columbus  prisoners 
for  a  large  fee  of  five  thousand  dollars.  General  Meade  says,  in  his  report, 
that  when  the  Governor  told  him  his  fee  was  five  thousand  dollars,  he  did  not 
feel  authorized  to  make  the  contract  without  the  apprpval  of  superior  au- 
thority, and  then  the  Governor  said  he  would  withdraw  from  the  case  if  he 
was  not  willing  to  pay  the  fee.  If  his  motive  was  to  benefit  the  prisoners, 
why  did  he  threaten  to  withdraw  unless  his  fee  was  agreed  to  ?  Surely,  the 
fee  had  some  influence  in  inducing  the  Governor  to  prosecute.  Was  he  not 
at  that  time  a  candidate,  or  expected  to  be  one,  for  the  United  State  Senate, 
and  did  that  have  any  influence  upon  his  conduct  ? 

The  Governor  also  says  that  he  took  the  case  to  prevent  the  employment  of 
a  more  radical  lawyer.  Read  the  history;'  of  1867  and  1868  and  point  out  a 
more  radical  lawyer  than  the  ex-Governor  then  was.  He  would  be  a  curiosity 
to  those  who  yet  remember  the  career  of  the  ex-Governor  during  those  dark 
days. 

In  concluding,  I  say  that  I  was  right  in  charging  Governor  Brown  with 
perfidy  and  treason  to  Georgia  in  acting  as  he  did  in  the  prosecution  of  the 
Columbus  prisoners,  and  being  an  anonymous  scribbler  in  the  newspapers, 
which  last  charge  he  has  not  denied.  LOUIS  F.  GARRARD. 


GARKARD  REFUSES  TO  LEAVE  THE  FIELD. 

A  Rej)ly  to  the  Recent  Letters  of  Ex- Governor  Joseph  E.  Brown 
Relative  to  the  Columbus  Tragedy. — He  Adduces  New 

Facts  in  the  Case. 

Atlanta  Constitution  of  Oct.  7,  1879.] 

Editoks  Constitution — Governor  Brown  commences  his  reply  by  saying 
that  my  attack,  as  he  styles  it,  on  him  was  "wanton  and  unprovoked."  As 
usual  the  truth  differs  materially  from  his  statement. 

He  appeared  before  the  committee  of  which  I  was  a  member  as  a  witness 
for  Nelms,  and  insulted  us  to  our  face,  and  then  cowardly  went  into  the  news- 
papers over  fictitious  names  and  denounced  us  as  a  "star  chamber,"  etc.  Did 
not  the  Governor  make  the  "v/anton  and  unprovoked  attack"  which  he  now 
charges  on  me  ?  He  voluntarily  made  himself  the  cham]3ion  of  Nelms,  and  as 
his  witness  swore,  what  the  other  testimony  convinced  me  was  not  true,  and 
because  I  replied  to  him  in  the  House  in  proper  language,  when  the  report 
was  under  discussion,  by  exposing  him  as  an  anonymous  scribbler  and  by 


14 


discussing  his  conduct,  as  I  had  a  perfect  right  to  do,  he  being  a  witness,  he 
says  my  attack  was  wanton  and  unprovoked.  He  should  have  awaited  my 
death,  as  has  heretofore  been  his  custom,  before  he  made  this  charge,  for  as 
I  am  living  I  disprove  it. 

I  am  told  that  Major  Campbell  Wallace  has  illustrated  the  ex-Go vemor's 
power  of  perversion  by  saying,  '"If  I  was  to  catch  Joseph  E.  Brown  in  the 
dead  of  night  in  my  chicken  house,  with  some  of  my  chickens  al^ady  taken 
off  the  roost  and  tied,  and  he  starting  off  with  them  in  his  hand,  I  would  so 
fear  that  he  would  charge  and  prove  that  I  had  stolen  my  own  chickens,  that 
I  would  say  to  him,  'Now,  Governor,  we  are  both  in  a  bad  scrape  together, 
and  if  you  will  only  take  the  chickens  and  say  nothing  about  it,  we  will  drop 
the  matter  right  here.' " 

The  Governor  proceeds  at  length  to  defend  his  reconstruction  record  as  if 
I  had  attacked  it.  He  makes  a  man  of  straw  and  then  proceeds  to  demolish 
him  to  his  own  satisfaction.  I  never  alluded  to  his  favoring  the  reconstruc- 
tion and  admission  of  the  State  back  into  the  Union.  When  the  conqueror 
demanded  that  we  should  adopt  amendments  and  make  laws  which  were  odi- 
ous to  our  people  as  a  condition  precedent  to  our  admission  into  the  Union, 
the  question  was  presented  to  our  leaders  whether  they  would  assist  in  rivet- 
ing these  chains  on  a  people  who  had  followed  their  advice  even  into  war,  or 
would  quietly  stand  by  and  let  the  .conqueror  do  it,  aided  alone  by  the  scalla- 
wags  and  carpet-baggers.  It  had  to  be  done.  Should  they  aid  it,  or  simply 
submit  ?  Aiding  would  not  have  softened  it,  and  holding  aloof  did  not  increase 
it.  Governor  Brown  preferred  to  encourage  and  assist  them  in  the  work, 
while  Georgia's  truest  sons  refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  it.  They 
asked  no  fees  or  favors  at  the  hands  of  their  conquerors,  while  the  ex-Gov- 
ernor was  seeking  to  represent  these  scallawags  and  carpet-baggers  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States.  But  I  will  not  be  drawn  into  a  discussion  of 
these  matters.    He  shall  not  dodge  the  real  issues  between  us. 

The  Governor  seems  to  think  that  Senator  B.  H.  Hill  would  not  now  repeat 
what  he  said  in  1868 — "that  his  name  ought  never  to  be  mentioned  in  decent 
company. "  The  Senator  has  never  retracted  it  and  never  will,  if  I  know  the 
man,  though  he  may  have  concluded  that  after  the  lapse  of  eleven  years  the 
Governor's  name  might  now  be  mentioned  in  decent  company. 

He  also  thinks  that  General  Toombs  would  not  now  say  of  him  as  he  did 
in  18G8  :  "Ignoble  villain-;  buoyant  solely  from  corruption,  he  rises  only  as 
he  rots  ! "  The  General  has  never  retracted  this,  and  the  Governor  has  never 
denied  it,  so  far  as  I  have  seen.  The  General  may  be  willing  to  modify  it  to 
suit  the  Governor's  present  condition,  though  I  am  not  authorized  to  say  so, 
"buoyant  solely  from  the  fruits  of  past  corruption  he  now  rises  only  as  he 
denies." 

The  Governor  still  explains  and  apologizes  for  his  cruel  prosecution  of  the 
innocent  Columbus  prisoners,  and  thus  tries  to  wipe  this  everlasting  stain 
from  his  name.  For  his  own  reputation  I  would  be  glad  if  he  could  truth- 
fully do  so,  but  for  the  good  of  coming  generations  let  the  stigma  remain 
upon  him  as  a  warning  that  the  consequences  of  such  crimes,  like  the  blood 
on  Macbeth's  hands,  will  remain  forever,  and  cannot  be  washed  clean  by  "all 
great  Neptune's  ocean."  He  does  not  deny,  because  it  can  be  easily  proven, 
that  he  received  the  large  fee  of  five  thousand  dollars  from  General  Meade, 
who  denounced  the  prisoners  as  murderers  of  whom  he  intended  to  make  ex- 
amples, or  that  he  threatened  to  withdraw  from  the  case  if  his  exorbitant  fee 
was  not  agreed  to.  If  he  went  into  the  case  really  for  the  benefit  of  the  pris- 
oners why  did  he  persecute  them  with  such  venom  that  in  their  card,  pub- 
lished after  their  release,  they  drew  this  contrast  between  his  conduct  and 
that  of  General  Dunn,  the  judge  advocate  whom  he  was  employed  to  assist : 
"General  Dunn's  courtesy  during  the  trial,  especially  after  Duke's  alibi,  was 
in  strong  contrast  with  the  vindictive,  ungenerous  and  unmanly  conduct  of 
Joe  Brown,"  To  protect  them,  was  it  necessary  to  push  his  "vindictive,  un- 
generous and  unmanly"  efforts  to  con-^ict  so  far  beyond  those  of  his  chief, 
whom  he  was  only  assisting  ? 

Why  did  he  threaten  to  withdraw  if  the  fee  was  not  his  object? 

Was  he  not  a  candidate  for  the  Senate,  and  did  not  the  military  commandCj. 


15 


have  mucli  to  do  in  controlling  affairs  in  Georgia  at  that  time  ?  Did  not  Gen- 
eral Meade  desire  their  conviction  and  a  vindication  of  himself,  and  did  this 
have  any  influence  in  inducing  the  Governor  to  vindicate  General  Meade's 
illegal  conduct  by  trying  to  convict  innocent  men  before  an  illegal  tribunal  ? 

He  says  that  in  making  his  vindication  General  Meade  did  not  mention  his 
name,  and  hence  he  could  argue  that  he  had  never  been  employed.  He  for- 
gets that  the  General  was  defending  himself  against  the  charge  that  he  was 
attempting  to  have  these  prisoners  hung  by  an  illegal  tribunal  for  an  alleged 
crime  of  which  it  had  no  jurisdiction.  Now,  if  General  Meade  had  made 
such  a  contract  as  Governor  Brown  claims,  it  would  have  been  an  answer  to 
this  charge  of  his  (Meade's)  desire  to  hang  them  for  him  to  have  stated  the 
contract,  and  yet  he  does  not  mention  it  in  his  public  "vindication,"  but 
boldly  defends  himself  by  denouncing  the  prisoners  as  murderers  worthy  of 
death. 

The  people  of  Georgia,  in  the  face  of  these  facts,  will  never  believe  the 
Governor's  assertion  that  he  went  into  the  case  to  protect  the  prisoners. 

Would  it  not  have  been  more  manlj'-  and  commanded  more  respect  for  him 
to  have  admitted  the  truth  and  put  his  defense  on  the  ground  that  he  was  a 
lawyer  woi'king  for  a  fee  ?  Let  us  see  what  he  claims  for  himself  was  his  con- 
tract. I  will  use  his  own  words ;  he  will  hardly  deny  them  in  the  same  week 
they  were  written.  His  language  is  as  follows  :  "By  the  express  tenns  of 
my  contract,  I  was  to  conduct  the  case  in  such  manner  and  with  such  vigor 
as  to  discover  the  guilt  of  the  accused  parties,  if  they  were  guilty.  But  I  was 
to  have  the  power  to  protect  their  lives  till  the  civil  government  was  restored 
in  case  of  a  capital  conviction. " 

At  most  he  only  claims  he  was  to  save  the  lives  of  the  prisoners.  Does 
this  man  consider  that  Georgians  are  like  reptiles,  to  whom  only  life  is  pre- 
cious ?  Does  he  not  know  that  reputation  and  liberty  are  also  of  paramount 
importance  to  gentlemen  ?  Dr}'-  Tortugas  at  that  time  was  a  prison  for  politi- 
cal offenders,  v/here  liberty  only  was  restrained,  but  death  in  the  shape  of 
pestilence  was  almost  sure  to  stare  the  victim  in  the  face.  It  was  Dry  Tor- 
tugas that  the  innocent  prisoners  feared  equally  with  death. 

The  Governor,  grasping  like  a  drowning  man  at  straws,  uses  evidence  that 
he  ought  to  know  is  illegal,  to-wit :  he  endeavors  to  prove  his  own  sayings 
in  his  favor  in  regard  to  his  then  contemplated  crime.  It  is  a  custom  with 
wily  criminals  to  make  statements  in  advance,  in  order  to  prove  a  different 
intention,  from  that  which  naturally  flows  from  their  own  acts.  The  rule  of 
law  is  "that  every  man  is  presumed  to  intend  the  natural  consequence  of  his 
own  acts."  This  rule  was  applied  to  Judas  Iscariot.  Shall  we  judge  Judas 
by  it,  or  shall  we  accept  the  explanation  that  some  of  his  creed  make  for  him, 
that  the  kiss  given  the  Savior  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane  was  a  kiss  of  affec- 
tion and  not  of  betrayal  ? 

Shall  we  accept  as  an  apology  for  Benedict  Arnold  that  he  went  over  to  the 
British  because  he  thought  the  fortunes  of  his  country  were  at  that  time 
waning  and  liberty  was  in  its  death  throes,  and  by  his^orethought  and  judg- 
ment he  intended  to  get  into  a  position  with  the  British  in  case  they  proved 
successful  where  he  could  be  of  great  benefit  to  his  countrymen  ? 

If  we  fail  to  accept  the  explanation  for  the  two  last  mentioned  traitors,  we 
certainly  should  not  accept  that  of  the  ex-Governor. 

Does  not  the  ex-Governor  know  that  by  the  rules  of  the  law,  which  he 
seems  to  think  the  "most  ignorant  justice  of  the  peace  in  Georgia"  should 
know,  that  he  cannot  prove  his  own  sayings  to  explain  his  criminal  conduct  ? 

Yv  hen  I  hold  him  down  to  the  rules  of  the  same  law  that  he  quotes  he  com- 
plains of  quibbling,  but  to  fool  the  people  he  has  wronged  he  overrides  both 
law  and  evidence. 

The  Governor,  then,  does  the  good  people  of  Columbus  the  base  injustice 
of  quoting  vile  slanders  and  insinuations  on  them  made  by  the  detective 
Keed  in  a  letter  to  General  Meade,  while  he  was  in  the  pay  of  the  General, 
working  up  the  case  that  the  Governor  prosecuted,  by  sweat  boxes,  cannon 
and  threats,  and  mad  because  he  could  find  no  evidence  to  show  the  guilt  of 
innocent  men,  and  before  that  remorse  and'  rej)entance  overtook  him  which 
forced  from  him  the  affidavit  from  which  I  quoted,  giving  the  history  of  the 


16 


means  used  to  obtain  the  evidence  on  which  the  Governor  tried  his  best  to 
convict.  IBe^id^s,  there  i  ~.  a  vast  difference  betvi^een  a  mere  letter  and  swear- 
ing, as  is  shown  by  the  marked  conflict  between  what  the  Governor  wrote 
Lockett  was  the  contract  with  Nelms  and  Alexander,  and  what  he  afterward 
swore  it  was.  There  is  also  a  wide  variance  between  his  published  interview 
and  his  sworn  evidence  on  this  same  contract.  I  have  pointed  out  these  dif- 
ferences in  former  communications,  and  I  will  not  repeat  them. 

The  ex-Governor  may  rest  assured  that  the  people  of  Columbus  entertain 
no  higher  opinion  of  Reed's  conduct  than  of  his  own,  though  they  giv^e  him 
credit  for  repentance  sooner  than  the  ex-Governor  by  about  eleven  years. 
The  Governor  tries  to  scare  the  Cokimbiis  pf^ople  by  calling  attention  to  the 
rules  of  law  that  no  statute  of  limitations  applies  to  the  charge  of  murder, 
and  insinuates  that  the  prisoners  may  yet  be  prosecuted  for  the  killing  of 
Ashburn.  After  Meade  and  the  Governor,  with  sweat  boxes,  cannon  and 
perjured  witnesses  before  a  military  court  composed  of  Meade's  subordinates, 
failed  to  convict  them,  certainly  they  have  nothing  to  fear  before  a  jury  of 
their  countrymen. 

He  says  that  the  alibi  of  Duke  was  not  so  clearly  proven  as  I  claimed,  be- 
cause the  counsel  for  the  prisoners  desired  to  introduce  more  evidence  to 
sustain  it.  Does  he  not  know  the  reason  ?  It  is  plain  and  simple.  He  still 
insisted  on  conviction,  notwithstanding  the  clear  proof  of  the  alibi ;  the 
court  was  an  illegal  and  irresponsible  body,  and  the  counsel  did  not  know 
what  influence  the  Governor  might  use  on  the  court,  or  what  would  be  the 
result,  and  hence  they  determined  to  pile  evidence  on  evidence  until  even 
the  ex-Governor  would  cry  "hold,  enough!"  The  ex-Governor  does  not  deny 
the  speech  thut  he  made  to  the  negroes  in  Atlanta  in  1868,  which  was  called 
at  the  time  an  incendiary  speech,  from  which  I  quoted,  nor  my  charge  that 
a  lawyer  in  Georgia  more  radical  than  he  then  was  would  be  a  curiosity,  and 
I  will  say  no  more  about  them. 

He  mentioned  his  advocacy  of  Grant  for  President  in  1868.  Of  this  I  feel 
but  little  concern,  but  I  do  feel  some  curiosity  to  know  if,  when  the  Repub- 
lican convention  at  Chicago  in  1868  (of  which  Governor  Brown  was  reported 
to  be  a  member),  were  chanting  the  incendiary  hymn  of  "John  Brown's  body 
lies  moldering  in  the  grave,"  they  made  him  raise  the  tune  as  a  proof  of  his 
repentance  and  conversion. 

In  alluding  to  my  reference  to  his  conduct  in  the  past  the  Governor  says: 
"This  is  the  spirit  of  the  hyena,  which  feeds  upon  the  rottenness  of  the 
past. "  If  I  understand  him  he  admits  that  his  past  is  rottenness,  and  charges 
me  with  feeding  on  it  like  a  hyena,  I  agree  with  him  as  to  the  rottenness, 
but  is  he  not  in  truth  the  hyena  ?  Does  he  not  go  among  the  graves  of  the 
dead  to  prove  facts  which  never  existed,  and  were  not  even  thought  of  until 
they  were  dead  ?  Has  he  not  called  from  their  last  resting  places  the  shades 
of  Meade  and  Alexander  to  sustain  bold  assertions  which  would  have  aston- 
ished them  were  they  in  the  flesh  ? 

The  Governor  devotesr  three  and  one-half  columns  of  your  paper  to  an- 
other attack  upon  the  proceedings  of  the  committee,  the  burden  of  which  is 
to  prove  that  he  told  the  truth  when  he  swore  he  was  present  when  Colonel 
Tom  Alexander  made  a  contract  with  Nelms,  by  which  he  agreed  to  pay  him 
$12  a  head  on  all  convicts  turned  over  on  April  1st,  1879,  when  the  new 
leases  went  into  operation.  It  was  such  an  outrageous  imposition  that  I  did 
not  then  believe  in  its  existence,  and  for  the  reason  given  in  my  former  com- 
munication, I  am  stiil  satisfied  with  my  position.  The  Governor  carries  in 
his  own  bosom  an  ever  present  witness  telhng  him  that  I  am  right  and  he  is 
wrong,  and  I  am  willing  to  leave  him  to  his  own  conscience. 

But  if  such  a  contract  was  made  by  Nelms  it  would  be  iQegal,  for  no  ofl&cer 
of  the  State  is  allowed  to  charge  the  citizens  for  performing  the  duty  re- 
quired of  him  by  the  law,  nor  to  make  money  over  and  above  his  salary  by 
the  performance  of  his  duty.  It  was  Nelms'  duty  to  deliver  these  convicts 
£<jad  to  make  the  lessees  pay  the  expense  of  the  delivery.  He  had  no  right  to 
make  the  delivery  profitable  to  himself.  His  manner  of  forcing  penitentiary 
company  No.  3  to  pay  him  the  money  under  this  alleged  contract  was  illegal, 
wrong  and  oppressive,  for  he  admits  that  he  threatened  to  remove  the  con- 
victs if  th3  money  was  not  paid. 


17 


Was  it  legal  and  right  for  a  public  officer  to  enforce  a  private  contract, 
which  was  denied  by  the  other  parties,  by  using  the  power  of  his  office  to 
oppress  and  harrass  them  ? 

The  ex-Governor  evades  these  positions,  and  tries  to  draw  public  attention 
from  them.  Were  they  not  sufficient  to  justify  the  position  I  took  in  the 
House  ?  Why  should  the  ex-Governor  demand  to  cross-examine  witnesses 
when  Nelms  admitted  these  charges  ? 

There  were  other  reasons,  as  shown  by  the  evidence,  in  support  of  our 
repoii,  but  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  them  here. 

The  Governor  called  me  a  cuttle-fish,  muddying  the  water  with  an  inky 
fluid  to  enable  me  to  escape  from  him.  I  leave  it  to  your  readers  to  say 
whether  I  have  attempted  to  escape.  Has  he  not  been  explaining,  apologi- 
zing and  defending  hiinself  ever  since  I  replied  to  his  first  attack  ? 

Has  he  not  ingloriously  fled  from  the  open  field  where  he  began  the  fight, 
and  sought  refuge  and  safety  behind  breastworks  composed  of  his  dead  wit- 
nesses ? 

Other  naturalists  equally  as  eminent  as  the  ex-Governor  insist  that  among 
other  peculiarities  of  the  cuttle-fish,  the  inky  fluid  is  thrown  into  the  water  to 
prevent  its  victim's  escape  by  flight,  and  that  when  its  tentacles  are  once 
fastened  on  the  victim,  nothing  but  the  death  of  the  fish  or  the  severing  of 
the  tentacles  from  its  body  can  release  its  grasp.  The  ancients  thought  that 
large  vessels  had  been  lost  at  sea  by  the  embrace  of  the  fish. 

LOaiS  F.  GAERARD. 


THE  LAST  OF  IT. 

Hon,  L.  F.  Garrard  Replies  to  Ex- Governor  Brown^s 

Last  Letter. 

Atlanta  Constitution  of  Oct.  10,  1879.] 

Editobs  of  Constitution  :  In  your  paper  of  the  9th  inst. ,  Governor  Brown, 
in  a  card  filled  with  falsehood,  fires  his  last  shot  and  retires  from  the  fight. 
Like  his  prosecution  of  the  Columbus  prisoners,  it  is  "vindictive,  ungenerous 
and  unmanly,"  and  I  may  add,  vulgar,  and  does  not  deserve  a  reply  from  me. 

I  cannot  become  a  blackguard,  or  descend  to  his  level  in  biUingsgate. 

Further  facts  and  argument  are  unnecessary,  as  I  have  fastened  upon  him 
forever  the  charges  which  I  made,  and  out  of  which  this  controversy  arose. 

No  impartial  man  can  doubt  that  he  prosecuted,  for  a  large  fee,  in  the  most 
cruel  manner,  before  an  illegal  tribunal,  om'  innocent  citizens  from  Columbus, 
and  tried  to  secure  their  conviction  and  punishment  on  the  false  testimony  of 
perjured  witnesses,  and  that  he  was  ah  anonymous  scribbler  in  the  news- 
papers, denouncing,  under  fictitious  names,  the  proceedings  of  the  committee 
of  which  I  was  a  member. 

These  were  the  charges  I  made  against  him,  for  which  he  attacked  me,  and 
with  the  truth  I  have  proven  him  guilty  of  them  both.  He  has  tried  his  old 
game  of  defending  himself  b}'  changing  the  ground,  and  when  he  sees  that  I 
will  not  follow  him  to  new  issues,  but  will  hold  him  to  these,  he  ceases  to  dis- 
cuss them,  blackguards  me  personallj'^  and  retreats  from  the  field  A  jjretty 
position  for  an  ex-Governor  of  Georgia,  who  boasts  "that  the  people  of  the 
State  gave  him  their  confidence  when  I  was  in  my  swaddling  clothes.  " 

I  have  had  it  in  my  jDOwer  to  make  other  damning  issues  on  the  ex- 
"  Governor,  affecting  his  character,  from  almost  every  aspect,  but  I  have  pre- 
ferred to  hold  him  to  the  issues  between  us.  With  this  I  drop  him,  and  will 
aUow  him  to  retire  from  the  public  gaze  and  scorn  until  his  example  may  be 
again  needed  to  instill  into  a  rising  generation  tinith  and  loyalty  by  showing 
thftn  what  are  the  opposites  of  those  virtues. 

It  is  my  rule  never  to  attack  a  retreating  foe  or  to  mutilate  the  remains  of 
a  dead  enemy. 

He  leaves  me  in  possession  of  the  field,  and  I  will  close  this  controversy  by 
thanking  you  for  the  use  of  your  columns,  which  has  enabled  me  to  recall  to 
the  old  and  to  tell  to  the  young  people  of  my  State  a  few  facts  in  his  career, 
which  will  eternally  blacken  the  name  of  Joseph  E.  Brown.    Very  truly, 

LOUIS  F.  GARRARD. 


m 


18 


OPINIONS  OF  THE  PRESS. 


APPLAUD  IT. 

All  in  this  "section  applaud  the  effort  of  Hon.  L.  F.  Garrard  in  repelling 
the  insult  offered  by  ex-Governor  J.  E.  Brown  to  a  committee  of  the  House 
directly,  and  then  by  anonymous  communications  in  the  papers.  His  pros- 
ecution of  the  Ashburn  prisoners,  among  whom  were  some  of  the  first  young 
men  of  Columbus  and  Georgia,  and  his  insults  to  elegant  ladies  on  that  trial, 
can  never  be  condoned  or  forgiven.  He  did  it  for  Federal  gold  and  under 
the  protection  of  Federal  bayonets.  We  of  this  section  applaud  our  Kepre- 
sentative  for  his  course  in  repelling  the  attacks  of  this  man  on  a  committee 
of  the  House. — Columbus  Enquirer-Sun. 

WHAT  GENEIiAL  BENNING  PKEDIGTED. 

Governor  Brown  makes  just  such  an  explanation  of  his  course  in  the  Ash- 
burn trial  as  the  late  lamented  General  Benning,  shortly  after  the  trial,  pre- 
dicted he  would  if  Democracy  should  again  come  into  power.  Our  people 
are  gullible  but  they  cannot  believe  all  that  is  told  them,  when,  on  the  printed 
page,  appears  undoubted  evidence  that  the  prosecutor  did  his  best  to  con- 
demn and  hang. — ColmnbuH  Enquirer-8u7i. 

BROWN'S  TRUE  FEELING. 

The  suggestion  of  Governor  Brown's  letter,  that  "there  is  no  statute  of 
limitation  that  bars  a  prosecution  for  murder,"  and  that  "as  the  times  were 
stormy,  it  may  be  best  that  this  case  be  regarded  and  treated  as  a  case  occur- 
ring during  the  war,"  will  be  regarded,  if  not  as  a  threat,  as  at  least  gratui- 
tous and  inconsistent  with  the  sympathy  for  the  accused  which  he  claims 
prompted  his  course  as  prosecutor  before  the  military  court. — Swoanndh 

WE  CANNOT  FORGET. 

Nor  can  the  people  of  Georgia  easily  forget  the  position  so  lately  occupied 
by  Governor  Brown,  of  complete  afnliation  and  sympathy  with  the  worst 
enemies  of  the  state  and  her  people.  This  thing  of  taking  the  big  side  and 
fattening  on  the  spoils  of  office  until  it  becomes  unpopular,  and  then  making 
a  complete  somersault  into  the  ranks  of  the  popular  party,  and  relying  on 
money  and  influence  to  sustain  and  justify  the  position  taken,  is,  or  rather 
has  been,  too  common  in  Georgia  and  the  South  generally.  He  who  is  once 
a  traitor  to  his  people  and  State  is  always  a  traitor  at  heart,  and  only  assumes 
for  a  purpose  anj- other  position. '  The  people  of  Georgia  should  not,  and, 
WQ  believe,  will  not,  forget  Governor  Brown's  course  since  the  war  prior  to 
1874,  and  the  glaring  inconsistencies  of  his  present  position  .with  the  greater 
part  of  it,  nor  allow  explanations,  however  plausible,  to  cover  up  the  naked 
facts,  hwt  rather  be  the  more  indignant,  that  one  of  Georgia's  sons  should 
devote  his  God-given  talents  to  such  unholy  purposes. — DeKalb  County 
News. 

HIS  COURSE  IN  A  NUTSHELL. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  late  war  he  seized  forts  in  our  State  before  Georgia 
had  passed  an  act  of  secession,  and  thus  inaugurated  war  against  the  United 
States  ;  later  he  warred  on  the  Confederate  Government  ;■  just  after  the  late 
revolution,  ostensibly  for  a  big  fee  and  to  save  his  own  property,  he  prosecu- 
ted Columbus  gentlemen  on  a  trumped-up  charge  of  murder  ;  subsequently, 
when  Chief  Justice  of  the  State  under  Radical  rule,  he  is  charged  with  acting 
with  the  negroes  and  lobbying  bills  through  the  Legislature  for  his  own^emol 
ument.  This  is  the  man  that  now  asks  Georgians  to  believe  that  he  acted  as 
a  friend  to  men  whom  the  evidence  shows  he  used  his  best  endeavors  to  hang, 
and  the  lady  relatives  of  some  were  insulted  by  him  when  he  was  under  the 
protection  of  bayonets.  Now  he  thinks  money  will  cause  all  to  be  forgotten. 
It  has  been  charged  that  the  Georgia  blockade  had  something  to  do  with  that 
wealth. — ColumMcs  E7iquirer-8un. 

A  CRUSHING  REPLY. 

It  is  not  here  intended  to  enter  into  the  discussion,  but  simply  to  show 


19 


therefrom  sucli  deductions  as  the  facts  before  us  warrant.  The  admirable 
article  of  Mr.  G^urrard  indeed  needs  uo  comment — its  logic  is  severely  percep- 
tible. A  direct  issue  as  to  the  veracity  of  the  ex-Governor,  touching  his  con- 
nection with  the  Ashbnm  case,  was  raised.  The  ex-Governor,  relying  upon 
the  weight  of  his  own  statement  solely,  is  answered  by  an  array  of  official 
facts  and  data  simply  overwhelming.  His  recollection  in  the  premises  is 
either  very  defective  or  convenient.  Discarding  prejudices  or  preferences, 
the  calm  observer  will  say  that  even  from  a  strict  legal  view  the  evidence  ad- 
duced preponderates  greatly  in  favor  of  Mr.  Garrard,  and  that  hence  the  ex- 
Governor's  vindication  is  sadly  incomplete.  *  Facts  furnish  the  logic  of 
conviction— spurious  statements,  no  matter  from  whom  they  may  emanate, 
reflect  the  weakness  of  a  cause.  Thus  seems  to  us  the  unenviable  position  of 
ex-Governor  Brown  in  this  controversy  with  direct  reference  to  the  Ashburn 
case. — Columbus  Times. 

THE  WAE. 

The  war  between  Mr.  Gari-ard  and  the  jnventor  of  the  "Joe  Bro^/n  pike' 
promises  to  be  Avarm.  Mr.  G.  seems  to  have  possessed  himself  early  in  the 
strife  with  one  of  these  ruthless  weapons,  and  he  handles  it  with  a  skill  and  an 
eye  to  business  that  vrould  excite  the  admiration  of  Cetewayo.  Those  who 
have  ever  had  the  satisfaction  of  looking  upon  oae  of  those  fearful  v/eapons 
will  rc-member  that  they  are  provided  with  a  hook,  v/hile  a  most  dreadi al 
looking  knife  prejected  m  fro'ot.  The  idea  of  the  reunorselsss  inventor  in  at- 
tnching  the  hook  to  this  dreadful  weapon,  is  thought  by  military  men  to  have 
indicated  both  genius  and  originality.  Tf  an  enemy  should  be  disposed  to 
make  a  stand  a  few  feet  in  fronc  of  you,  by  hitching  the  hook  under  his  b-  It 
he  could  be  instantlj'  drawn  within  range  of  your  fist  or  ramrod  or  a  sand  bag 
or  some  other  sort  of  deadly  weapon.  By  dextei'ousl^  fastening  the  hook  into 
the  seat  of  his  breeches,  a  retreating  enemy  could  be  detained,  until  his  thor- 
oughly exhausted  patience  would  leave  him  no  alternative  but  surrender.  It 
is  likely  that  this  rear  view  of  the  use  of  this  combination  weapon,  presents  it 
in  the  fearfullj-  harrassing  Ught  which  first  suggested  it  to  the  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  Georgia  militia  during  the  late  unpleasantness.  It  is  at  least  true 
that  no  more  successful  way  of  detaining  in  one's  immediate  presence  a  dis- 
satisfied party  who  fain  would  get  himself  thence  has  ever  been  discovered  by 
the  uninspired  genius  of  man.  Mr.  Garrard,  having  equipped  himself  with 
one  of  these  back-acti6n  weapons,  is  p;:epared  to  do  a  considerable  amount  of 
poetic  justice.  Give  it  to  him,  Mr.  Garrard ;  give  it  to  him.  It  would  afford  » 
us  a  half  century  of  unalloyed  pleasm^e  to  see  the  heroic  inventor  flying  in 
rear-ruined  discomfiture.  Joseph  would  then  be  known  in  historj-  as  "Get- 
a-way-oh."  the  inventor  of  the  pike.    Shove  him  up. — Sparta.  Islimaelite. 

JOE  BE  OWN. 

> 

Ex-Governor  Joseph  E.  Brown  recn-ntly  published  an  article  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, in  which  he  endeavors  to  excuse  his  infamy  and  deceive  the  people  by 
spying  he  was  actuated  by  high  and  honorable  motives,  and  by  a  desire  to  aid 
the  defendants  and  the  people  of  Georgia  when  he  accepted  a  fee  from  the 
United  States  Government  to  assist  in  putting  our  people  in  sweat  boxes  and 
trying  before  a  military  court  to  deprive  them  of  their  lives.  The  people  of 
Georgia  will  not  believe  this  man,  whose  whole  course  during  the  reconstruc- 
tion period  was  such  as  to  recommend  him  to  the  high  favor  of  the  dictators, 
tyrants  and  maUgners  of  our  people.  He  commenced  his  political  career  by 
being  one  of  the  most  violent,  red-mouthed  secessionists  and  enemies  of  the 
national  Government ;  did  all  he  could  to  bring  about  the  secession  of  Georgia, 
and,  after  the  Confederacy  was  formed,  aided  and  abetted  the  enemies  of  his 
State  by  hateful  and  impatriotic  opposition  to  the  acknowledged  authorities  of 
the  Southern  Confederacy.  He  used  the  advantages  afforded  by  his  position 
as  Governor  during  the  war  to  speculate  upon  the  necessities  of  the  people, 
and  became  a  rich  man  by  snatching  the  bread  from  the  mouths  of  soldiers' 
wives  and  children.  After  the  war  he  took  sides  with  the  enemies  of  his 
State  and  the  enemies  of  constitutional  liberty,  offered  himself,  like  Judas,  for 
a  price,  was  accepted,  and  for  the  sake  of  money  he  became  the  most  violent 
persecutor  of  his  people  and  the  most  willing  tool  of  military  t^Tanny,  and, 
under  its  protection,  he  put  otir  joung  men  to  most  inhuman  torture,  and  in- 


20 


suited  and  brow-beat  the  most  refined  and  virtuous  women  in  the  land. 
There  is  no  excuse  for  such  a  time  server  and  brute,  not  even  the  impulse  of 
passion  can  be  urged  in  his  favor,  for  he  is  noted  for  being  a  cold,  impassion- 
ate  political  schemer.  As  a  president  of  a  railroad  he  may  be  a  success.  As 
a  politician,  we  believe  his  unbounded  ambition  and  grasping  avarice  would 
scruple  at  nothing  which  would  further  his  ends  and  accomplish  his  purposes. 
We  tharik  God  we  never  did  vote  for  him,  we  pray  God  to  incline  our  heart 
always  to  abhor  him  and  all  others  who  are  or  have  been  actuated  by  avari- 
cious motives  when  they  turn  against  and  become  traitors  to  their  neighbors 
and  friends.  We  can  ndmire  an  honest,  conscientious  I^nion  man  who  sided 
with  the  Federal  Government  during  the  war,  because  of  patriotic  principles, 
but  we  loathe  and  despise  the  double  traitor,  who,  after  leading  his  people 
into  trouble,  basely  deserted,  and,  for  money,  assisted  to  degrade  and  perse- 
cute them.  —  Oriffin  Sun. 

THE  GREAT  PERIL  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

AN  OLD  ISSUE  KEVIEWED. 

We  do  not  propose  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  personalities  involved 
in  the  newspaper  controversy  between  ex-Governor  Brov/n  and  Hon.  Louis 
F.  Garrard.  But  there  are  some  positions  taken  and  assumptions  made  by 
the  ex-Governor  in  reference  to  what  was  the  duty  and  policy  of  the  people 
of  the  South  at  the  close  of  the  war,  to  which  we  cannot  assent.  Indeed, 
our  convictions  and  our  course  were  in  such  direct  opposition  to  his  views, 
that  we  do  not  feel  inclined  to  pass  by  without  comment,  so  plain  an  arraign- 
ment of  the  conduct  of  ^fche  party  with  whom  we  acted. 

There  was  no  political  subject  fnot  even  the  question  of  secession)  that 
ever  gave  us  so  much  concern  as  the  proper  course  of  the  white  people  of  the 
South  at  the  close  of  the  war.  We  came  then  to  the  conclusion  that  both 
duty  and  expediency  reqiiired  them  to  maintain  a  solid  phalanx  against  the 
organization  and  the  reconstruction,  measures  of  the  Republican  party  of  the 
North  ;  to  cling  with  unyielding  tenacity  to  the  remnant  of  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution ;  to  stand  up  with  what  power  was  left  us  for  the  same  rights  of  the 
States  and  the  peoy4e  ;  and  to  maintain  among  ourselves  a  solid  political 
unity  as  far  as  possible.  It  is  true  that  miich  of  what  we  resisted  was  uncon- 
stitutionally forced  on  us  ;  that  a  dominant  sectional  party  made  our  oppres- 
sion and  humiliation  its  shibboleth  ;  and  that  we  have  gone  through  much 
trouble  and  tribulation  in  maintaining  our  present  desirable  political  condi- 
tion of  a  "solid  South."  But  let  us  reflect  for  a  moment  what  would  have 
been  our  condition  if,  by  yielding  principle  and  right,  we  had  consented  to 
the  party  division  of  our  people  ten  or  twelve  years  ago.  Had  we  done  so, 
we  would  now  have  had,  all  over  the  South,  a  powerful  white  Radical  party, 
or  at  least  one  numerous  enough,  with  the  aid  of  the  colored  votes,  to  main- 
tain political  control.  Our  officials  and  representatives  would  still  have  been 
carpet-baggers,  supported  and  kept  in  pov/er  by  the  vice  and  ignorance  of 
the  community.  The  era  of  of&cial  extravagance  and  plunder  would  have 
been  prolonged  indefinitely,  and  there  would  have  been  little  fear  of  punish- 
ment by  impeachment,  because  a  party  living  on  the  plunder  of  its  oppo- 
nents, who  paid  the  taxes,  would  always  protect  its  official  partisans.  Is  this 
a  desirable  condition  V  Was  not  its  avoidance  a  full  compensation  for  all  the 
sacrifices  of  the  patriotic  whites  of  the  South  who  "chose  rather  to  suffer 
affliction  with  the  people  of  God  than  to  endure  the  pleasures  of  sin  for  a 
Beason  ?" 

We  have  been  able,  with  the  help  of  our  political  allies  of  the  North,  to 
successfully  resist  and  defeat  some  of  the  Eepublican  measures  of  usurpation 
and  centralization.  We  are  now,  by  their  help,  relieved  in  great  part  of  the 
arbitrarj^  rule  so  long  and  grievously  imposed  on  iis,  and  we  contemplate  with 
much  hope  the  early  restoration  of  the  Federal  administration  to  its  consti- 
tutional paths  and  its  jiist  regard  for  the  rights  and  interest  of  all  its  sections. 
But  what  would  have  been  the  condition  of  the  Democratic  party  of  the 
North  to-day,  what  its  ability  to  stand  vip  against  Radical  power  and  aggres- 
sion, if  the  whites  of  the  South  had  consented  to  division,  and  the  Republi- 
cans, by  alliance  with  the  negroes,  had  maintained  to  this  day  their  rule  in 


21 


all  or  a  majority  of  the  Southern  States  ?  The  very  suggestion  is  enough  to 
make  one  shudder. 

The  true  course  of  the  united  white  people  of  the  South,  under  the  crush- 
ing defeat  which  they  snotaiued  and  ruin  of  their  pecuniary  interests  and  de- 
moralization, was  to  maintain  their  manhood  and  cling  to  their  constitutional 
guarantees  with  the  tenacity  of  a  refugee  to  the  altar  of  safety.  This  they 
have  done,  and  to  this  course  alone  they  owe  all  that  they  have  preserved 
from  total  wreck  and  ail  their  reasonable  hopes  of  the  political  future. — At- 
lanta Dispatch. 

DUG  up. 

We  have  said  nothing  as  yet  in  regard  to  the  Brown-Garrard  controversy, 
and  now  we  propose  that  Mr.  Garrard  be  fined  one  thousand  doll'irs  for  dig- 
ging the  old  thing  up  out  of  the  iniquity  in  which  it  took  refuge  after  the  w-ar. 
Old  Brown  discarded  ti'uth,  honor,  party  and  people  then  and  went  into  the 
Radical  camp  ;  insulted  the  Democracy  by  inviting  them  to  follow,  and  cov- 
ered himself  from  the  gaze  of  the  people  in  his  own  infamous  act.  Mr.  Gar- 
rard has  dv:^  him  up.  Now  it  would  be  nothing  but  right  for  him  to  pay  one 
thousand  dollars  for  the  benefit  of  the  Hood  orphan  fund  for  this  breach  of 
decency.  — Sumter  Republican. 

ROMANTIC. 

The  secret  understanding  between  Governor  Brown  and  General  Meade,  by 
means  of  which  the  Columbus  prisont  rs  were  to  be  saved,  is  remarkably  ro- 
mantic. It  affords  a  wfmderfully  good  foundation  for  a  more  than  ordinarily 
thrilling  dime  novel.  The  poor  prisoners,  the  dreadful  sweat-box,  the  cruel 
soldier}^,  the  bloodthirsty  satrap  with  a  drawn  sword  in  his  hand,  could  be 
skillfully  touched  up  so  as  to  represent  the  seeming  impossibility  of  escape. 
Then  Joseph  could  be  trotted  out  by  degrees  as  the  *'ca]m  and  serene"  hero 
who,  under  the  sham  of  prosecution,  was  prepared  to  die  for  the  accused. 
Let  the  dime  novel  machine  work  up  this  thrilling  skeleton  for  the  good  little 
boys  of  the  State. — Sparta  lahmaelite. 

OUR  MOTTO. 

Our  mofto  is,  and  we  expect  to  live  and  die  by  it:  "Let  his  disgraceful 
treachery  to  Georgia  in  the  past  be  rewarded  v/ith  the  utmost  contempt  it  de- 
serves, and  the  cloak  of  hypocrisy  he  wears  be  his  winding  sheet." — Dublin 
Gazette. 

TAKEN  A  REST. 

Ex-Govemor  Brown  has  taken  a  rest.  Captain  Campbell  Wallac^^  publishes 
a  card  whi;  h  really  does  not  help  the  ex-Governor  in  the  least.  Meade's  de- 
fense and  the  incidents  of  the  trial  and  the  manner  of  the  ex-Governor  in 
conductina'  the  exariiination,  all  contradict  the  alleged  undeTstanding  with 
General  Meade.  The  latier's  brief  expressions  do  not  fit  the  case  of  the  ex- 
Governor,  nor  did  his  apology  to  the  people  of  Georgia. — Columbus  Enq-Sun. 

THOSE  CIRCULAR  LETTERS. 

If  Governor  Brown  has  any  of  those  circular  letters  left  wh^ch  he  sent  out 
to  the  Georgia  troops  just  before  the  war  closed  we  would  be  thankful  for 
him  to  send  us  one.  That  was  done  doubtless  "to  save"  the  Confederacy!  — 
Sparta  Ishmaelite. 

THE  ASHBURN  TRIAL. 

Ex-Governor  BroAvn  seems  not  satisfied  to  let  his  attempted  defense  of  his 
connection  with  the  above  memorable  case  rest  upon  his  voluminous  replies 
to  Mr.  Garrard,  but  has  elicited  and  published  in  the  Atlanta  Constitution  a 
letter  from  Hon.  A,  H.  Stephens,  the  precise  bearing  of  which  on  the  issue 
between  ths  ex-Governor  and  Mr.  Garrard,  is  not  easy  to  discover.  The 
memory  of  that  prosecution  is  still  vivid  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  Neither 
the  friends  of  ihe  prisoners  nor  their  counsel  had  any  intimation  of  Gov- 
ernor Brown  ajid  General  Meade's  generous  intentions,  nor  had  they  any  rea- 
son, from  the  manner  in  which  the  trial  was  conducted,  to  s\ippose  that  any 
such  understanding  as  thdt  alleged  by  Governor  Brown  existed  l  etween  them. 
Unfortunately  for  Governor  Brown,  General  Meade  is  not  alive  to  testify, 
and  no  associate  officer  in  his  confidence  has  come  forward  to  throw  Ught 
upon  the  subject. — SavannaJi  News. 


22 


BROWN'S  DEBTS. 
Joseph  E.  Brown  says  he  owed  the  people  of  Georgia  a  debt  of  gratitude. 
He  doubtb^ss  might  have  as  truthfully  added  that  he  also  owed  them  some 
cotton.  It  will  be  hard,  however,  for  him  to  convince  the  people  that  an 
alignment  with  their  enemies  and  a  prosecution  of  their  sons  and  wives  and 
daughters  was  the  proper  vray  to  cancel  that  indebtedness. — Griffin  News._ 

GARRARD  ON  TOP. 

The  "intellectual  pigmy"  has  floored  the  would-be  giant.  The  card  pub- 
lished this  morning  squelches  the  ex-Governor.  He  must  be  small  to  be  so 
out  mancsuvred  by  a  yoiing  man.  Mr.  Garrard  is  brief,  and  disregards  the 
mass  of  the  ex-Governor's  apologies  and  explanations  as  wholly  irrelevant, 
and  holds  him  to  the  few  points  in  controversy.  From  the  ex-Governor's 
own  conduct,  and  the  declaration  and  act  of  General  Meade,  it  is  shown  the 
conditions  claimed  after  eleven  years  silence  could  not  have  existed.  All  the 
probabilities  are  that  if  General  Meade  was  living  this  latter-day  apology  of 
the  ex-Governor  would  never  have  been  made.  Many  would  really  like  to 
know  if  the  ex- Governor  did  raise  the  tune  to  ''John  Brown's  body  is  march- 
ing on,"  when  it  was  warbled  by  the  Chicago  Republican  Convention,  of 
wlaich  he  was  a  member.  We  had  no  idea  the  ex-Govemor,  now  a  model 
D'^raocrat,  was  a  songslyr.  He  commenced  the  trouble,  wrote  colnmu  after 
column,  and  has  been  badly  defeated.  Garrard  is  on  top  and  the  people  are 
glad. — Columbu8  EiiqvArer-Sun. 

TRIAL  OF  COLUMBUS  PRISONERS. 

It  is  with  no  great  delight  this  matter  is  referred  to  again,  but  we  assure 
ex-Governor  Brown  we  are  not  afraid  to  refer  to  it.  He  is  the  man  who  is 
keeping  it  up.  In  Sunday's  Atlanta  Constitution  he  has  a  letter  from  Hon. 
A.  H.  Stephens,  which  we  reproduce,  which  contradicts  the  ex-Goverhor's 
previous  fssertion,  and  in  addition  a  thi'ee  column  editorial,  written  by  the 
ex-Governor  or  his  chosen  scribes,  defending  the  ex-Govemor's  action. 

Whv  the  Comtitution  should  act  thus  we  do  not  know.  We  have  no  diffi- 
culty  with  that  paper.  We  have  to  do  with  the  ex-Governor.  We  have  suf- 
fered toe  much  in  Columbus  for  a  seven  and  eleven  years'  subsequent  apol- 
ogy from  ex-Governor  Brown  to  be  accepted.  When  the  Republicans  were 
ruling  Georgia,  he  had  not  a  word  to  say.  Eleven  years  after  the  most  bitter 
persecution  of  which  "we  have  knowledge,  he  comes  forward  with  explana- 
tions too  ganzy  for  belief.  They  were  not  offered  in  General  Meade  s  life- 
time. Now,  the  ex-Governor  would  represent  General  Meade  as  recreant  to 
his  government,  false  to  duty,  by  an  understanding  he  had  with  him.  Gen- 
eral ^Jeade  made  a  r  ;port.  It  has  no  mention  of  such  an  tniderstanding  as 
ex-Governor  Brown  alleges  he  made  with  him.  In  all  the  witnesses  Mr. 
Brown  has  called  up,  no  proof  has  been  shown  substantiating  the  ex-Govern- 
or's statement.  All,  in  its  last  analysis,  depends  upon  his  own  say  so.  He 
explained  to  Mr.  Stephens  seven  yeo.rs  after  the  Ashburn  trial ;  to  the  people 
after  eleven  years.  The  explanation  detained  that  long  must  be  very  attenu- 
ated. General  Meade  does  not  mention  it.  Mr.  Stephens  does  not  affirm, 
but  virtually  denies  it,  Mr.  Brown  said  in  one  of  his  letters,  he  took  the 
prosecution  to  benefit  the  Columbus  prisoners.  Mr.  Stephens  says  he  ad- 
vised him  to  sever  the  cases  so  that  the  guilty  might  be  punished".  Mr.  Ste- 
phens refused  because  he  believed  he  would  acquit  all.  Mr.  Stephens  says 
General  Meade  told  him  that  the  prosecution  had  broken  down  on  the  Duke 
alibi.  Ex-Governor  Brown  claimed  that  it  was  due  to  him  the  prisoners  were 
released  by  his  d  day  until  the  State  had  restored  civil  law  by  the  adoption  of 
certain  umendnaents  required  by  the  doininant  party  in  the  United  States. 
By  not  one  single  witness  is  the  ex-Governor  sustained.  All  depends  upon 
the  ex-Governor's  statements. — Columbus  Enquirer-Sun. 

THE  BROWN'S  STYLE. 
We  have  heard  of  things  "done  brown,"  but  the  late  endeavor  of  the  ex- 
Governor  of  Georgia  has  surpassed  anything  yet  attempted  in  this  State. 
Having  pressed  human  beings  as  near  to  death  as  he  could,  failed  in  his  polit- 
ical ambition,  the  worst  enemy  our  commonwealth  ever  had,  he  now  says  he 


23 


did  it  all  out  of  friendship  and  a  religious  effort  to  protect  the  people.  Aftei 
a  decade  he  comes  forward  with  flimsy  excuses  and  the  claquers,  who  worship 
his  money,  declare  he  has  done  all  that  is  right  and  honorable.  It  "fatigaes 
the  indignation"  to  think  a  newspaper  article,  backed  by  money,  can  outweigh 
the  acts  of  years.  Are  the  doings  of  people  so  soon  forgot,  and  the  words  of 
enemies,  where  we  wanted  friends,  taken  as  truth  against  sworn  testimony  ? 
We  hope  (>eorgians  will  not  do  it,  and  we  know  this  section  will  not. — Colum- 
bus Enquirer-Sun. 

THE  INVENTOR. 

Governor  Brown's  explanation  of  his  Radical  record  in  1868,  is  lamentably 
weak  and  unsatisfactory.  It  doesn't  rise  even  to  the  dignity  of  an  honest 
confession.  He  says  "he  did  not  support  the  Seymour  movement  on  the 
insane  platform  of  1868."  He  omits  stating  that  he  would  not  have  sup- 
ported Seymour  on  any  sort  of  a  platform.  It  was  perhaps  unnecessary  to 
have  made  any  such  statement  after  affirming  the  great  good  that  would  have 
resulted  if  the  South  had  followed  his  example  and  voted  for  Grant  in  1868. 
Governor  Brown's  objection  to  voting  for  Seymour  and  Blair,  as  stated  by 
himself,  grew  out  of  the  insanity  of  the  platform  on  which  they  were  nomi- 
nated. Does  he  mean  to  take  the  position  now  that  the  Radical  platform  of 
1868  was  more  acceptable  to  him  in  the  matter  of  the  principles  that  it  enun- 
ciated than  the  Democratic  platform  of  that  year  ? 

It  is  not  at  all  singular  that  a  professed  Democrat,  who  could  see  claims 
enough  in  the  Radical  platform  of  1868  to  win  his  heart  and  his  ballot,  should 
have  thought  the  Seymour  movement  an  insane  affair. 

Governor  Brown  admits  that  he  voted  for  Grant  "as  a  measure  of  policy.  " 
This  is,  doubtless,  true.  The  Democrats  of  Georgia  are  in  the  habit  of  vot- 
ing from  principle.  They  voted  for  Seymour  in  1868  from  principle.  They 
were  not  prepared  to  swallow  Grant  and  the  platform  that  wasn't  "insane"  in 
Governor  Brown's  opinion,  even  through  policy.  The  truth  is,  the  fierce 
inventor  of  the  "Joe  Brown  pike"  had  some  personal  reasons  for  turning 
Radical,  which,  doubtless,  were  weightier  with  him  than  the  "insane  plat- 
form" of  the"  Democratic  party  in  1868.  Considering  his  anxiety  to  get  out 
of  the  Union,  his  haste  to  get  back  into  it,  afforded  a  scene  that  would  have 
been  ludicrous  if  it  had  not  been  so  humiliating.  The  idea  which  this 
"policy"  man  puts  forth,  that  by  voting  for  Grant  in  1868  the  South  would 
have  gotten  rid  of  the  "bloody  shirt,"  with  all  which  that  implies,  is  an  in- 
vention which  had  not  best  be  patented  yet.  How  we  would  have  rid  our- 
selves of  the  '  'bloody  shirt"  by  putting  it  on,  is  one  of  the  m^'^steries  which 
only  a  great  inventor  can  explain.  "We  do  not  think  the  South  would  have 
gained  anything  by  following  Governor  Brown's  example  in  putting  on  the 
bloody  shirt  and  eating  buzzard  in  1868.  If  we  are  not  mistaken,  South 
Carolina,  Mississippi,  Florida,  Louisiana,  and  North  Carolina  endorsed  the 
great  bummer  and  gift-taker  that  year.  Did  they  better  their  condition  by 
joining  the  brigade  of  policy  buzzard  eaters  ?  If  we  are  not  vastly  mistaken, 
the  States  that  endorsed  "the  Seymour  movement  or  the  insane  platform  of 
1868,"  were  the  first  to  rid  themselves  of  the  fearful  find  loathsome  plague  of 
scalawags  and  carpet-baggers.  If  the  people  of  Georgia  had  all  turned  scal- 
awags in  1868,  as  Joe  Brown  insists  was  dictated  by  "policy,"  it  is  impossible 
to  see  how  the  State  would  ever  have  been  delivered.  No.  It  wasn't  proper 
for  the  decent  people  of  Georgia  to  vote  for  Grant  in  1868,  and  we  are  glad 
to  say  that  they  didn't  do  it.  It  would  have  been  exceedingly  wicked  in  them 
to  have  pretended  to  turn  Radical  in  their  sentiments.  Hypocrisy  is  never 
excusable.  To  have  actually  endorsed  the  shameless  principles  of  the  diabol- 
ical platform  on  which  Grant  was  nominated  would  have  been  not  a  whit  less 
base.  In  addition  to  the  wickedness  of  the  one  course,  and  the  shameless- 
ness  of  the  other,  it  would  have  been  attended  by  no  good  results  whatever — 
as  is  proved  by  the  record  of  those  Southern  States  that  joined  the  Governor 
in  his  dainty  dish  of  buzzard. 

And  stiU  further,  as  a  great  privilege  arising  from  sticking  to  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  even  on  its  "insane  platform,"  we  have  not  been  compelled  to 
anxiously  await  an  opportunity  to  "err"  back  into  the  Democratic  fold,  as 
would  have  been  the  case  had  we  followed  the  Governor  in  bowing  down 


24 


before  the  Kadical  calf  in  1808.  But  how  was  it  in  1872  ?  Wasn't  "our  Joe'* 
somebody  else's  Joe  even  then  ?  Didn't  he  vote  for  Grant  a  second  time  ?  If 
so,  was  it  from  "policy,"  or  adult  rated  love?  Hadn't  the  Democratic  plat- 
form recovered  its  sanity  in  167 'J Did  he  vote  for  Tilden  in  1876  from 
policy?  It  begins  to  apx3ear  as  i'  the  inventor  of  the  Joe  Brown  pike  had 
r.e- erred  back  into  the  Dt-mocratic  fold  from  motives  of  policy.  We  are  free 
to  say  that  we  are  afraid  of  such  man.  Ee-erring  men  are  too  unstable  to 
bguild  upon.  A  man  who  ignores  principle  and  counsels  the  adoption  of 
Cfrantism  because  it  is  politic,  is  not  a  man  worthy  of  the  coniidence  of  the 
people.    It  is  impossible  to  tell  when  he  is  sincere. 

.  For  one  we  do  not  propose  to  bubmit  quietly  to  being  lectured  by  this 
returnirjg  political  prodigal  for  not  being  shameless  enough  to  desert  to  our 
euemies  in  18GS. 

The  iDeople  of  Georgia  have  borne  a  great  deal  of  wrong,  and  borne  it  pa- 
tiently ;  but  they  will  not  quietly  sntfer  this  repentant  Radical  policy  striker 
to  teach  them  Democratic  wisdom.  — Sparta  Ishmaelite. 

UTTERANCES  OF  GEORGIA  STATESMEN  IN  1868. 

In  18G8,  at  the  grand  Mass  Meeting  of  the  Georgia  Democracy,  in  the  city 
of  Atlanta,  the  lamented  General  Howell  Cobb,  General  Robert  Toombs  and 
Senator  B.  H.  Hill  made  their  famous  "Bush  Arbor"  speeches.  General 
Cobb,  in  the  midst  of  the  most  pov  erfnl  speech  of  his  life,  when  he  spied 
Joseph  E.  Brown,  or  his  attention  was  called  to  him,  and  when  alluding  to 
the  cruel,  traitorous  and  unpatriotic  crusade  that  ex-Governor  Brown  was 
then  leading  against  the  Democrac}  the  true,  honest  and  patriotic  people  of 
his  own  State,  paused  as  it  were,  and  raising  his  hands  aloft,  said  :  "Oh  to 
Heaven  for  some  blistering  words  with  which  to  write  upon  this  creature's 
brow  his  own  infamy.'"    People  of  Georgia,  have  you  forgotten  this? 

Following  General  Cobb,  was  "Our  Ben,"  who,  in  his  usual  telling  and  sar- 
castic style,  said  of  Governor  Brown  "that  he  was  not  a  fit  associate  for 
the  more  decent  negroes  of  Georgia.  '  This  same  Joseph  E.  Brown  is  now 
associate  United  States  Senator  from  Georgia,  with  Senator  Hill,  and  sits  side 
by  side  with  him  in  the  Council  Chamber  of  the  nation.  Does  Mr.  Hill  and 
his  Democratic  friends  in  Georgia  remember  these  utterances  ?  these  dark 
days  when  Joseph  E.  Brown  so  acted  toward  Georgia  and  her  people,  as  to 
cause  them  to  loudly  applaud  what  Senator  Hill  said  of  his  present  senatorial 
associate  ? 

Then  came  General  Robert  Toombs,  who  visited  upon  this  same  ex-Gov- 
ernor Brown,  that  withering  invective,  which  made  him  even  more  famous, 
and  which  was  published,  repeated,  and  long  kept  fresh  in  the  minds  of  the 
people  throughout  the  length  and  breath  of  this  Southern  land.  "  Ignoble, 
traitorous  villain,  he  rises  as  he  rots  and  rots  as  he  rises."  Democrats  of 
Georgia,  do  these  things  still  live  in  your  minds,  or  have  the  radical  outrages 
and  oppressions  of  the  last  twelve  or  fifteen  years  obliterated  them  from  your 
memories  ? 

Such  were  the  utterances  of  our  leading  men  of  1868,  and  which  then  were 
loudly  applauded  and  enthusiasticali}'  endorsed  by  the  Democracy  of  Georgia. 
Now,  if  simple  allusion  is  made  to  the  conduct  of  those  who  deserted  their 
people,  their  party  and  their  State,  in  these  dark  and  trying  days,  we  are  at 
onco  accused  of  being  slanderers,  vihiners,  etc.,  and  told  to  hush  or  we  will 
bring  upon  our  people  the  charge  of  treason,  rebellion  and  disloyalty  to  the 
Union,  if  this  be  Democracy,  if  this  be  the  lash  by  which  we  are  to  be 
whipped  into  accepting  everything  r:ght  or  wrong,  agreeable  or  disagreeable, 
then  ^ve  want  to  know  it,  and  kno\7  it  at  once.  — Athens  Banner. 

GARRARD  WINS  THE  FIGHT. 
Tell  it  in  Gath  and  publish  in  A  .kalon  that  the  ex-Governor  has  been 
silenced  by  one  who,  when  a  boy,  was  figliting  the  battles  of  his  country, 
while  the  ex-Governor,  then  the  Chiti  Executive  of  the  State,  was  placing 
every  obstacle  in  its  progress. — Coluruius  Enquirer-Sun. 


